Disco Dooro is the second album by Bolognese band Feat. Esserelà. It was released in 2019 on the independent label Joe Frassino Records and distributed in collaboration with Lizard Records. The line up is the same of the debut album and features Francesco Ciampolini (keyboards, fretless bass), Renato Minguzzi (guitars) and Lorenzo Muggia (drums) but during the recording sessions this time they were helped by some guests such as Lorenzo Musca (sax), Dario Nipoti (trumpet) and Michele Tamburini (sax) who contributed to enrich the sound. The final result is a fresh mix of vintage sounds, progressive rock, jazz, fusion, funk and classical music confirming all the good qualities of their previous work. According to the liner notes, on this album you can find sources of inspiration ranging from Koji Kondo (a Japanese music composer, pianist, and sound director who works for the video game company Nintendo, best known for his involvement in numerous contributions in the Mario and The Legend of Zelda series of video games) to a Bulgarian anonymous, from Dizzy Gillespie and Frank Zappa to Gioacchino Rossini but there’s many more and all the musician involved showcase great musicianship. As for the cover and booklet, the band asked the visual artist Vanni Venturini to draw some pictures of bizarre, colourful and extravagant characters to represent their music and he did a really beautiful job...
The short opener “Lauto grill” is just a funny intro a cappella in the vein of the hidden track that ends Tuorl, the band’s debut album, a kind of subliminal and reassuring message of continuity. The first real piece, “Kajitemeco”, starts by frenzied keyboard rustic(an) rides and rhythm pyrotechnics but at some point it veers into another musical direction taking synthetic, hallucinated paths and a slower pace. The following track, “Servi della klepa”, is an excellent mix of classical influences and jazz rock with a perfect interaction between piano and guitar. Then it’s the turn of “Sahara...” and “...svegliati è primavehera” that are linked together: the titles seem to hint that here we are in front of the parody of a famous song by Italian cantautore Antonello Venditti (Sara) but luckily it’s just a false clue and the music flows away like an apple riding a leaf, sailing toward the waters of the Black Sea for the pleasure of Area’s fans.
To describe “La nascita di Lodovico Svarchi” (a very short track that sounds like the fragment of a cartoon score) and “Lodovico Svarchi” I think that there is no better way than to look at the central picture in the booklet that portrays a strange zombie in a surreal world. The music starts softly with a dreamy atmosphere and a soaring sax solo, then the rhythm rises while raw electric guitar riffs sweep the dreams away. Who’s Lodovico Svarchi? Maybe he’s just a commuter crushed down by the daily grind, slowly waking up and going to work leaving his dreams behind...
Next comes “Popoloto”, an interesting blend of jazz rock and Mediterranean influences, while the following “La fine di Lodovico Svarchi...” is just a kind of conceptual joke: the shortest song (1,17 seconds) with longest title (888 characters) in the world! Then the nervous virtuosic rides of “(…) aio” and the joyful “Intro (by Intronyo)” end an album that it’s really worth listening to.
Have a try! You can listen to the complete album HERE
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