thingstoburnrecords

FUJI APPLE WORSHIP

a_second_ through_the_years

(thingstoburnrecs #05)

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http://musicwontsaveyou.com/

Fuji Apple Worship, ovvero di quando la provincia italiana accede, senza far rumore, a una dimensione internazionale. Si tratta di un quartetto trevigiano che già da qualche anno distribuisce le proprie tracce in maniera gratuita attraverso la rete e che, per la realizzazione di “A Second, Through The Years” si è avvalso del mastering di Taylor Deupree.

Non si pensi, tuttavia, che i trentacinque minuti di musica racchiusi nell’album vivano soltanto della luce riflessa dal nome del prestigioso “padrino”, poiché la proposta della band veneta presenta tratti sufficientemente delineati, che ne elevano le sei composizioni a immaginarie colonne sonore elettro-acustiche, sospese tra terra e cielo, tra placidi paesaggi di un naturalismo ambientale, dense saturazioni sonore e un brulicante substrato melodico.

Mentre infatti l’incipit “Afternoons Are Still Quite The Same” descrive una morbida ambience solcata da tessere sonore irregolari, l’imprevedibile affacciarsi dell’elemento vocale in “A Step Back” e “Single Girls Buy Double Beds” aggiunge, rispettivamente, obliqui scheletri melodici e claudicanti cadenze in bilico tra luminose screziature jazz e segmentazioni “post-“.

Le composizioni nelle quali la band trevigiana riesce ad esprimersi al meglio appaiono tuttavia le più lunghe e sinuose sinfonie ambientali (oltre ai nove minuti del brano iniziale, i quasi sette di “Blame It On The Correspondent, Not On The Writer” e gli otto della conclusiva “The Comfort Of Numbers”), le cui suadenti atmosfere si svolgono con lenta precisione, costellate da caldi riverberi e microsuoni, fino a sfiorare ipnotiche derive labradfordiane.
Scoperta piacevolissima e consigliata, in download a offerta libera via http://fujiappleworship.bandcamp.com/.

http://www.ambientexotica.com/ambrev184_fujiappleworship/

Fuji Apple Worship is a quartet of musicians spread across Europe whose music is hard to categorize in a definite way. It is a sad state of affairs that genre conventions are still postulated and intact in this decade, but that is the base I have to work with, so I best describe the band's latest six-track mini album A Second, Through The Years as a hybrid of guitar drones and distant, intricated Pop particles. Mastered by 12k's Taylor Deupree, released in January on Thingstoburn Records, available to purchase (name your price) and listen to in full at Bandcamp, A Second, Through The Years features the talent of Giovanni and Nicola on the guitar, drummer Simone together with his laptop as well as Solar_Plex's additional guitar and analogue synths. Giovanni is also part of the Belgian duo Tropic Of Coldness whose Commuting EP I reviewed, and it is the Brussels-based artist who contacted me via email to make me aware of this particular work. The backgrounds of the respecitive musicians already hint to an overt use of the guitar, but this is neither a strict Drone record, nor an artifact where the guitars are incessantly processed or altered. Their characteristic traits and textures are always perceptible for a reason: no post-processing takes place, no filters are applied, all six tracks have been recorded in one go as a single set, and only an unspecified amount of minor editing and overdubbing has been realized. Giovanni's vocals, for example, were not featured in the original recording session and thus added post hoc. The various tracks or sections are described by the band as movements, which is an explanation for the changing atmospheres, the capricious wideness and gentle mood shifts. The specific reason for the album title has not been given away, but I think I can offer fitting assertions over the course of this review.

The mini album launches with a decidedly melancholic or even resigning artifact which is, however, only true if you read the title in a pessimistic way,.......