Giampaolo Verga - Fadensonnen (2008)

The almost hymnal feel to some of Giampaolo Verga's more serene passages for violin and voice, and their combination with the shrill tininess and bristling static of the electronics often has the effect of making one think that he has discovered a time-warp linking some deserted church to a contemporary urban studio. In these places, the pieces aspire to sensitivity and restraint; but they are far from being neat and to the point. A static energy seems to fizz below them, betraying a fiery spontaneity that surfaces now and again in various ways, from violent discontinuities to dimension-stretching motions, which distort the familiar and carouse with the irrational.
The first track begins with a warped violin theme, accompanied by bell-like electronics and skewed percussion that seems to roll like a dial across the radio spectrum, which gradually revs up to a bit of music theatre, depicting an exuberant, and somewhat strenuous, acoustic/electronic quarrel.
In the later stages of the disc, the electronics are used to time-stretch Verga's voice into tense strands of energy that explode into some strange knockings of a big-end variety, but mostly they accentuate or act as bridges between melodic ideas. The real challenge — and pleasure — of most moments, then, is how Verga squares the microscopic gestures with the melodic forms presented here. These elements are generally successful in maintaining a sonic continuum, slightly broody and contained. Only in the mid-section does atmosphere get placed unduly above musical material.