Matteo Bortone - No Land's (2020) [Hi-Res]

Fourth album as leader for double bass player and composer Matteo Bortone, ‘No Land’s’ will be out two years after ‘ClarOscuro’ (CAM Jazz), five years after ‘Time Images’ (Auand Records) – which led Bortone to be awarded Best Italian Rising Star at Top Jazz 2015 – and seven years after his debut album, ‘Travelers’. The new band is an evolution of the ‘Travelers’ lineup: the French-Italian quartet active since 2008, who worked with Bortone on his first two albums, is now a quintet/sextet.

‘No Land’s’ collective research process is built around contemporary jazz fueled by rock/pop sounds, psychedelic moods, echoes of drone music and electronics. The addition of the Rhodes piano significantly expands the sound range – to make the most out of it, Bortone reinvents himself as composer and player, developing a new approach to writing that also involves electronics, glockenspiel, and manipulated background voices – all of which allows him to create sounds he never explored before in his career as a leader.

Contrast seems to be key in Bortone’s world – electronic vs. acoustic; long structures vs. brief episodes; unison vs. polyphony. It’s an idea he tries to fully examine, in order to understand what lies behind.

The album title ‘No Land’s’ is intentionally unclear, leaving this mystery to any future listener. On the cover art, a kid plays in a bare land. Freedom, not-belonging, a land of no one (or anyone?), a mystery – these elements in ‘No Land’s’ invite the listener to explore a audiovisual creation that evolves through 9 tracks, and is ideally summarized in the final ‘Volverse Lugar’ (“Turning into a place”).