CD, Silentes, 2010
enricoconiglio.com
The name Enrico Coniglio is neither new to this scene nor to me. In the past I had the pleasure of reviewing another CD where he was one of the collaborators. The album “dyanMU” was released on the Irish label Psychonavigation Records, but for “Sea Cathedrals” Enrico chose to stay closer to home, as it was released by fellow countrymen Silentes.
The album’s imagery and its music are conceptualized around ‘Sea Cathedrals’, or the great heritage of the coastal industrial archeology of Porto Marghera. Part field recordings, part guitar loops, bells, vocals and synths, this album gathers sounds from as many different origins as what was brought into the harbour.
Just like on the aforementioned “dyanMU”, which was a collaboration with Elisa Marzorati, “Sea Cathedrals” is again a collaborative effort. On the cover and in the books it says Enrico Coniglio feat. M.P. Cecchinato and M. Liverani, and within the liner notes we also find additional vocals being credited to Manuela Bruschini.
Sadly, I couldn’t find any more information about the other persons, so the review will focus on Mr. Coniglio himself. And why try to rewrite what is told so perfectly on his website? “Enrico Coniglio is a musician with an interest in the aesthetic aspects of the landscape. … his music tries to explore the loss of identity of places and the uncertainty of the evolution of the territory.”
This feeling of forgotten memories and places that ‘once were’ very well depicts the atmosphere that is created on this album. Long, stretched sounds with slow movements – which sometimes take a bit too long, like on the title track – while at other moments the activity within the sound spectrum is very high. An example from this can be heard in the gorgeous second track, “Sandbanks”.
“Sea Cathedrals” is a well-executed piece of ambient music which will appeal to more than just the usual target audience for this kind of work.
[7/10]
— Bauke van der wal