SCURO CHIARO

Album review

The title of Alessandro Cortini's second solo album for Mute reverses the term chiaroscuro, an artistic term for using light and shadow to create strong contrasts, though it's equally a juxtaposition of opposites. His own music similarly balances hope and despair, making both elements inseparable from each other. Like 2019's Volume Massimo and his 2020 collaboration with Daniel Avery, Scuro Chiaro contains some of Cortini's most melodic material, yet it's as raw, vulnerable, and in-the-moment as anything else he's done. The album's most impressive pieces are the ones that take longer to build and let all the feelings sink in. "Chiaroscuro" blooms softly, with synth lines nervously swimming between the left and right speakers, as molten shoegaze guitar gradually douses everything with pathos. It's simply overwhelming by the time it concludes. "Sempre" becomes increasingly unnerving, with an almost nauseatingly tense atmosphere growing around a consistent rhythmic bump, continually growing until it's reached a violent level of distortion. Play this extremely loud in a darkened room and you'll undoubtedly feel like the walls are closing in on you. "Nessuno" isn't quite as scary, but as its hazy arpeggios gradually emerge from a murky fog, it evokes a sense of slow-motion panic. There's also a sense of mounting tension to shorter, rougher tracks like "Corri," but it doesn't always feel resolved at the end. "Verde" is a definite success, slowly heating up and then bursting into flames at the right moment, and "Fiamma" intrigues with its flickering effects and creepy, below-the-surface whispering.
© Paul Simpson /TiVo