Words by Justin Turford
Some records are a tonic for the soul. I can only envy someone who’s dreams may be soundtracked by this impressionistic, painterly collection of ‘songs’, a transcendent timelessness of ephemeral voices, deeply bathed electronics and unhurried, egoless instrumentation.
Like smudges of emotions and transient thoughts, the musical pieces here from the Italian jazz-experimentalist currently residing in Leipzig, float through and around the listener, triggering feelings without demanding which ones. Ambient, meditative and ‘jazz’ in its most untethered sense, Damian Dalla Torre has created a sonic experience that is both of nature and of space.
Following on from his 2022 ‘Happy Floating’ debut album, he found himself on an artistic residency in Santiago, Chile, the grateful shock of the new South American environment becoming the seeds from whence this project began. The overwhelming colours of this new landscape and further inspiration at an exhibition of paintings by two friends awakened a relationship with the colour blue. A well-repeated motif in jazz, blue doesn’t appear to evoke sadness on this occasion, more an aqueous stimulation, a gentle refraction of watercolours, vivid yet without the bruises of life.
Drawing on a few of the same collaborators as his first record, including fellow South Tyrolean and T&L favourite Ruth Goller, Damian has used a very different lineup of instruments this time. For one, there are no drums present. Beatless and highly produced, as beautiful as they are, many of the compositions don’t seem to care whether they remain in your consciousness post-listen. Transitory like the best meditations, the music is all-encompassing until it isn’t. Poof! The cloud has gone.
Pieces like ‘Acryl’ shimmer with such fragility that one can barely disassemble what instrument is being played. Is that Laura Zöschg’s voice or is it the violin of Teresa Allgaier or even Damian’s flute?
The title track ‘I Can Feel My Dreams’ is fuller sounding, the treated organelle a harmonic rhythm of sorts as ghostly monkish voices, pedal steel guitars and field recordings drive by. Like choice selections from the ‘Exotica’ genre of the 1950s, one could be anywhere in the world, hazy recollections in musical form.
The Andean flute, the Quena, is a repeated and welcome guest on the record. On the scene-setting intro number ‘Ago’, it breathes out over a rippling harp and a cello which seems to dive like a swallow in passing.
Ruth Goller’s electric bass appears only once on the album. Her singular melodic picking on the pastoral strangeness of ‘Solo’ adds a narrator to this stunning piece. Harp (from the wonderful Miriam Adefris), distant flute, clarinet, birdsong, cello and organelle combine into a truly enveloping experience. A mention must also go to Felix Römer for his featherweight piano glissando on this and other songs.
Viola Blache’s hymn-like voice recurs on a few pieces, especially on the interstellar hymn of ‘Domenica’, her naturalness in contrast to the stuttering electronic processing of Damian’s synths and organ. The sound of heat-baked traffic through muffled headphones whilst thinking of gods and goddesses.
She also appears on the subtly glitching ‘Memo’, Jonas Timm on the piano this time sharing the same space as Markus Rom’s light touch banjo. Hypnotic and meditative, the rhythm and melodies swim together like air.
There is much to love on this record. Seductively minimalist and really quite graceful, there’s surely a good time to sit back and let this wash over and through you wherever you may find yourself. It may even help you find yourself, if only for a moment. 9/10.
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