LISTEN TO 'EMAK'
He who nurtures no passion for research, experimentation and the convergence of differing languages will have considerable difficulty appreciating the music of Mario Chianello.
He who, on the other hand, is used to studying, analysing and looking at what lies behind things, will find himself on the same wavelength as this musician who shows himself to have reached, especially in his second solo album "Emak", an enviable maturity.
Without doubt his classical studies at the "G.B. Martini" conservatory in Bologna, his experience as a music arranger at the Chorus recording studio in Bologna, his presence in singer Didi Balboni band in the '60s, and his experience in the Genesis cover band "Domino+", have served their purpose. All these elements mix and meld to perfection in this album which, far more than the previous album "Proxima", proves to be homogeneous and, so to speak, liquid.
The album moves smoothly from Pietro Malaguti's bagpipes on "My Faraway Land" (a track containing a keyboard passage in perfect Tony Banks of Genesis style whose dynamic rhythm and ecstatic "earthy" atmosphere, together with the tracks "Earth Dance" and "Sahara River" would have Peter Gabriel of Womad and Real World jumping up and down on his chair), to "Satie" style compositions like "Sweet Piano", to atmospheric tracks like "Whispers of Time" which presents a surprise theme at the end with a vaguely gypsy-like accordion and a passage of baroque church organ chords. Moving on we find perfect 16th century style canons in the track "JSB", pure new age in "Dolce Vita", light dance references mixed with elements of classical and blues in Cryptex, and the well-calibrated atmospheres in the arrangements of "Two Lights", "Emak" and "At The End".
Call it new age for adults, call it refined world music, call it contemporary progressive ambient, or be content just to listen and abandon yourself to this fresh, free music: intellectual but not excessively so, shaped and smoothed, yet fluid as a river that gathers, conserves and carries in its flow all that if finds on its way.
Gianmaria Consiglio
(translation by Tony Lawson)
