Words by Justin Turford

Rarely does a collaboration between two singular artists end in a result so egoless as ‘Dolomite’, the fifth edition in Maddalena Ghezzi’s ‘Minerals’ series. Teaming up with the brilliant bassist, singer and composer Ruth Goller, the duo have submerged themselves into each other, which is apt considering that this E.P. is filtered through the concept of water; the Odyssean journey of a single drop of water as it travels through different, ever changing landscapes.

Beautifully strange, this earthly - unearthly collaboration paints an abstracted watercolour of imagery relating to the natural world, the climate emergency and to places of healing, their conjoined personal relationships to the magnificent Dolomites mountain range, just one of the connections between the musicians.

If you have come across Ruth Goller before, whether it’s via the ‘Skylla’ album on Bex Burch’s Vula Viel Records or her recent debut for International Anthem, ‘Skyllumina’, you will instantly recognise her curiously tuned universe. A well established bass force for the leading lights of the leftfield jazz and improvisational music movements, the Swiss born artist’s solo work has been a revelation. Mysterious and otherworldly, Ruth’s combination of drones, plucks and impenetrable vocals exude a poetic beauty that sounds like nobody else.

Maddalena Ghezzi inhabits her own equally mystical soundworld, the Italian singer, composer and improviser well versed in musically exploring the ideas that are generated by the power of place, emotion and personal growth. Her ‘Minerals’ series of releases has seen her collaborating with well selected artists, the process of collaboration as much an aim as the finished thing. The releases so far have all been equally intriguing, a collection of notes and exchanges between courageous artists willing to be part of a collective conversation about nature and their place in the world, as a human, as an artist and as nature itself.

The songs are sung in four languages - Italian, Ladino and German (that represent this historically diverse region in South Tyrol), and in English. Maddalena wrote a poem in English and Italian and Goller translated it in German and Tyrolean Ladino (Ladin), the ‘songs’ here actually being variations on the one lyric, the single poem that worms its way through each changing musical landscape like the single drop of water that begins at the top of the mountain range, weaving its way down and through the changing landscape, picking up debris and power, pushing away and drawing in.

Ruth’s plucked harmonics and the multilayered voices of the two manage to represent a heady atmosphere of interweaving movements and a remarkable sense of space. On ‘I Fliag’, voices transform from ostinato droplets of melody to the expelled air of holes in the earth; groans, deep breaths, a punky grinding bass line. ‘Volo’ washes through us as if a hymn, a moment of peculiar sanctity. Each piece is different yet the same. ‘Jole’ is the earthiest, an ancient folk song perhaps, the multilingual region’s collective memories in a duel of contrasting voices.

An extraordinary sonic journey from these two uncommon talents, ‘Dolomite’ is a generously strange adventure, its visceral sensations and poetic atmospheres a deeply rewarding experience. 9/10

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