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CNMM 004LP
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The five-volume project by the guitarist/founder of Calibro 35 continues. Massimo Martellotta, after having dedicated himself to the synths, the prepared piano (CNMM 002LP, 2018), and the symphonic orchestrations (CNMM 003LP, 2018), address the fourth chapter of the One Man Sessions series to the guitar with minimal drum grooves and analog brushstrokes. The title Underwater immediately clarifies the dreamy atmosphere and surfacing the passion for soundtracks and library music with experimentation, accompanying the listener on an amniotic journey amid the feeling of abandonment and vigilance that it is when you dive.
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CNMM 003LP
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The five-album solo project One Man Sessions by Massimo Martellotta, continues after the synthesizers of One Man Sessions Volume 1: Sintesi (2018) and the mellow prepared piano and drum grooves of One Man Sessions Volume 2: Unprepared Piano (CNMM 002LP, 2018). With One Man Session Volume 3: One Man Orchestra , there is another change; it is indeed a full-fledged orchestral album, conceived with the film music composers of the 1950s in mind, Bernard Hermann et al. One Man Session Volume 3: One Man Orchestra , in which Martellotta engages in writing for an orchestra of a retro mold, is set in his world with an absolutely personal and current twist. Each instrument is played and tracked in real time, including the computer, which is this time a valid assistant in the simulation of some of the used timbres, intended as a real instrument in the middle of real ones. Sumptuous arches, crackling tympanums, and sinuous woods find space to dialog with lounge organ and percussion invented like the music paper itself, rubbed to keep time on some of the themes. Once again the composer surprises us and displaces us, using all his resources as multi-instrumentalist and mixing languages, venturing into worlds far away from each other. On One Man Session Volume 3: One Man Orchestra one is light years from the world summoned on One Man Sessions Volume 1: Sintesi and yet one always finds a distinctive and recognizable feature that makes all the volumes of the complete work coherent. Realized, like the other volumes, in complete solitude, the album reveals knowledge of all-round musical material and a strong taste for the melody. "Oppio" is reminiscent of the darker Ennio Morricone or Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead and is a counterpart to the opening song "Il Cappotto" , a perfect title track that quotes and closely reworks a John Williams composition. On other pieces, in episodes more rhythmic, and sometimes romantic, one finds a passion for Jon Brion and timeless melodies. One Man Session Volume 3: One Man Orchestra is an album to listen from the beginning to the end, following the emotional story told like that of a film, of which one sometimes has the impression of seeing the images, waiting to immerse themselves in the abyss evoked by the forthcoming fourth volume.
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CNMM 002LP
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After the oneiric journey through synthesizers on Volume 1, entitled Synthesis (2018), Massimo Martellotta (founding member of Calibro 35) returns with the second volume of One Man Sessions exploring the tonal possibilities of the classical instrument par excellence: the piano. The instrument is at the center of the scene, and the prepared piano in the manner of John Cage is here decontextualized and freely "In/Prepared" and reinvented in a very personal way, placing objects of common use on the strings themselves to obtain unprecedented timbres. Starting from its nature as a percussion instrument, the piano is hit, caressed, blocked with rubbers or left to resonate on the capsule of a microphone, or else pinched like a harp or a cymbalon, while it fires with the battery, the vibraphone or the mellotron. In Unprepared Piano, the music moves from more classical compositions, quoting Chopin and Satie (the opening piece "Come Un Notturno") to introspective drones ("Risonanza") to songs that hybridize the languages, delineating immediate melodies and openings in balance between the absolute modernity of Nils Frahm, the moving color imagery of Bad Plus (for example in "Sostenuto") and the minimalism of Penguin Café Orchestra ("Nécessaire Per Fanciulli"). All this once again held together by an evocative, current and always recognizable conductor. An album where the piano is the protagonist then, but the dialogue with the other instruments is continuous, fluid, and you will often forget that behind every instrument there is only one person.
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