Review: Stromboli - Volume Uno

Now this is something rather special. Stromboli is an enigmatic artist from Italy who caused a bit of stir a couple of years ago with his debut recording and garnered wide praise. His music has been said to "Describe boundaries and territories through drones, city dwelling rhythms, noise landscapes and elegant melodies, Stromboli defies what is traditionally associated with the ambient genre, by creating a beautiful dark psychedelic rotating world"...yup, that sounds like one for me. 'Volume Uno' is Stromboli's debut long player, released on Maple Death Records, and is quite simply spellbinding....a beguiling mix of industrial rhythms, dense swirling drones and dystopian nightmares.

'Drag Phase' immediately gives the listener chills down the spine - the oscillating, reverb laden drones and bursts of broken synth refrains sound like the last transmissions from a dying planet; the feelings of isolation and terror veritably weep from the speakers. 'Downwards' seamlessly follows with the same dystopian vibes and desolate soundscape. There are similarities to be drawn from the dark techno of Perc or Rrose but with a distinct aural exploratory twist a la William Basinski's 'Disintegration Loops'. This is music that really paints a picture - not a pretty picture admittedly; visions of decay and mutation and gangs of feral humans roaming the urban landscape looking for fresh meat. This is not an album to be played to those of a nervous disposition. 'Haunted' has a pulsing rhythm and industrial noise that only heightens the atmosphere. It injects some adrenalin to proceedings, not particularly with regard to tempo but in the effect it has on the listener. 'Drop' takes its cue from the early industrial pioneers, with its metal-on-metal undercurrent over which lays some shimmering synths and lush drones. Somehow it has the feel of the kosmische but in a very mechanised way, it has a certain warmth that seeps through the factory made noise. 'White Walls' is another track just dripping in urban dread; a melange of noises and drones all underscored by a hypnotic miasma of tape manipulation and mutated instrumentation while 'Arrows' once more adopts a certain kosmische stance with rich washes of sound countering the seemingly random bursts of electricity and static. This gave me the same buzz as Vangelis' 'Bladerunner' score (musically there are some similarities but I'm really talking about a feeling - that feeling of shards of light in the darkness like Ridley Scott's vision of the future)....it truly is a fantastic piece of work. 'Glow' opens with some heavy rhythmic thuds and vacillating industrial noises reminiscent of a train rolling along the tracks. Another track that raises the heartbeat and draws forth thoughts of decay and power, of mutation and evolution. 'Basedow Graves' closes the album with another foray into industrially warped kosmische music that throws some hauntology into the mix - another superb exercise in soundscape conjuration and exploration into the dark recesses of the psyche.

My over-riding thought on listening to 'Volume Uno' was that if Andrei Tarkovsky was still alive and making films, this would be the soundtrack - it shares the same haunting poetry of Tarkovsky, the same inate ability to conjure visions that are not so much supernatural as supranatural, it raises things above what we know and understand; it's about what we WILL know and understand, namely the death of thought, the decay and waste of modern life and the expanding industrialisation of our society.. There is nothing as wishy-washy as the supernatural about this album...it is harsh in places, sublime in others but it is always enthralling and always incredibly effective. I'm aware that not everyone will dig this album, but anyone who likes their music to be more than just something to listen to will get a great deal from it - it is music that needs to be experienced and to be lived. Fantastic stuff! 'Volume Uno' is available from the Maple Death Records Bandcamp page here and is available in vinyl and digital formats.