The order of the day is precise technical audio, vast depth of field, futuristic dystopias and a fair degree of psychotropic sound design.
Italy and electronic music make comfortable bed fellows. From the analog compositions of Alessandro Cortini to London based Alessio Natalizia and his Not Waving project, Italy currently has a firm grip on turning out righteously experimental computer music. A look through this Fluid Radio list of 100 adventurous Italian artists compounds this thought only further.
Amongst all this we also find Rome’s Plaster with a third album that dishes up some serious moody tension. If you are not familiar with Plaster, the order of the day is precise technical audio, vast depth of field, futuristic dystopias and a fair degree of psychotropic sound design.
Influences seem far and wide which is what makes Plaster releases so enjoyable. There’s definitely a dark trance undercurrent lurking about here—witness the pumped flex of “Terminal” and the cerebral arps of “Lucubra.” Epic pads and Valeria Svizzeri’s rich vocals rise from the murk—even a touch of thrash metal style chops get a look in.
Tracks are adeptly melded into each other—a lot of time and effort has clearly gone into both production and album flow, not least across the marvelous run of the last three tracks. Beefy pointillist bass stabs surround themselves with explosions of white noise deterioration on the onomatopoeic “Cluster System” which then feeds the spacey propellant of “Primal,” itself morphing into the epic Bladerunner come down of “Coiled Heart.”
The world of Plaster sits somewhere between an anti neo-futuristic traveler rave, a steroidal Vangelis and all the best parts of bass weight proponents such as Senking and Kanding Ray. If any of that sounds even remotely appealing you are guaranteed to find plenty to love in this release.
Mainframe is available on Kvitnu.
