On »Natura Morta«, Andrea Belfi approaches the music as if he was a renaissance-artist painting a still life. His quiet compositions are meandering slowly, are describing a condition rather than focusing on changes. And yet, his electro-acoustic music is not static – instead, each sound, each noise has enough room to unfold, allowing the listener to explore the music »von allen Seiten«. This way, every detail can be filled with attention and meaning, without losing the individual instruments’ connectivity. After all, the half dozen tracks include all kinds of instrumentations: The opener is based on a slow drum beat with an ethereous synth-layer hovering above. Water is purling, a feedback blows across. The next composition, so it seems, is made of a fiddlestick stroking an electric guitar as well as cymbals, which are also carefully hit, accompanied by a digital bass drone. The atmosphere is a quiet one, turning the listener into an acoustic observer. No matter if Belfi works with kettledrums or distorted zithers, with electronic rumbling or cranky synth loops – his music is always relaxed without ever coming across as sleepy. It’s a chilled out (yet wide awake) piece of music with an ear for detail.
Natura Morta
