• Aperture - Stanze
  • Aperture - Stanze

Aperture - Stanze

Stray Signals

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Deep ruminations and meaningful explorations of sombre stillness and inward contemplation on this new album from Berlino/Italiano sister-brother duo Aperture. Alongside guest instrument players, here they serve up a very wholesome deep dive into electro-acoustic late night dream pop and avant-garde folk music on the Stray Signals label.

This one has now landed from the pressing plant (finally) and is ready to be dished out to the world in all it's stretched out beauty, in an (accidental) limited edition of 150 copies -

"Aperture is a current studio and live project created by Italian born/Berlin based siblings Emanuele and Elisabetta Porcinai. This is their 2nd album following up from the outstanding debut “Threads” from 2018.

Their music explores tension between hushed intimate spoken vocals and singing amidst detailed soundscapes of guitars, bass and percussion soaked in electronically derived detailing, working with a reduced brittle instrumentation that at first calls to mind the more subdued moments of Sonic Youth’s 1st album and the quiet tension of the dreamy parts of Sister, the non-bombastic and tense subtleties in the low passages of Slint and that band’s off-shoot The For Carnation, a music that sounds as afloat as it evokes walking-on-eggshells in a very quiet room. A somnambulant atmosphere which seems to teeter as if it could explode and shatter at any moment, but doesn’t.
In the course of the 9 tracks on this remarkable and unique album we are presented with a
perfectly considered, fastidiously composed and produced song cycle.

On this recording Aperture are abetted by some very strong collaborators: Drummer/percussionist Andrea Belfi who in this instance deploys a spacious atmospheric free-flow of reduced accents and insinuated beats rather than the frenetic synchronicity he is known for. This airy approach bodes with the minimalistic and considered sparse tonal flow of Alf Brooks’ reduced bass and subtle electronics.

Accented by somber piano passages, yearning harmonium drones and unidentified quiet clatter of light atmospheric noise and the overall low tempo of the suite, it is as sparse and hushed as a Feldman piece by the end of the second side of the LP incorporating what seems like domestic sound sources in a natural space with the flute of collaborator Martina Brandorff chiming in some otherworldly lyricism.
Closing out the record is a bare-as-can be lead vocal from brother Emanuele with just an acoustic guitar and his striking tenor voice which is so transparent one could think he was playing in your room."

At the end of this text we quoted here (written by Dean Roberts) - the writer concludes that, although the free form and organic textures could lead one to think so, this is by no means just another 'lofi improvised record', and that it is in fact one of the most 'most considered, well constructed and most beautiful records heard in a very long time' -

After full listen - headphones or at least immersive speaker positioning recommended - we have to agree with the above sentiment.
This record is a thing of beauty, rich in detail and musically extremely flexible - going from subtle minimalism to tear jerking grandeur, through softest intimate moments, to near abrasive, yet still somehow delicate string manipulations... This record floats it's way through an ever unfolding narrative - there is no rush at all to reach the final destination, but when it does... You'll be consumed and taken into it's world, left with the music as an undefinable, yet strong feeling. Like a distant memory of a story you dreamed of once... 

Written in Berlin and Milan by Elisabetta and Emanuele Porcinai, 2020-2022.
Recorded and mixed by Emanuele Porcinai and Alfred Brooks at Studio Distante in Berlin, 2021.
Bass, Drums, Electronics and Production on Everyone, Paper Cities and Read Me a Poem by Alfred Brooks. Drums on Everyone by Andrea Belfi. Flute on Read Me a Poem by Martina Brandorff. Mastered by Loop-O
Cover photo and Design: Elisabetta Porcinai.

INCLUDES DL CODE.


Tracklisting:
SIDE A
01 — Siren
02 — Everyone
03 — Sogno
04 — Paper Cities
SIDE B
05 — Stanze
06 — Weightless
07 — Le parole ed i gesti
08 — Read Me a Poem
09 — Sveva


Siren



Everyone



Sogno



Paper Cities




Stanze



Weightless



Le Parole Ed I Gesti




Read Me A Poem



Sveva