My Review: Gintsugi - The Elephant in the Room

 Gintsugi - The Elephant in the Room

"We are never so helpless towards suffering as in the moment when we love."

Sigmund Freud

This beat, pilgrim, tired, eager, white, descends from its throne and crashes on the craggy planes of the mind, the nuclear powerhouse of all pain. Stories, vicissitudes, various contortions, well-assorted and ill-assorted, squeeze into the existence that seeks footholds. Into this context comes a woman with a sharp tongue, an iron wrist, a discipline that positions itself in every gesture, thought, with gentle ferocity, to allow her a wide range of action. Her name is Gintsugi, the voice that melts the cracks of metal to cling to sweetness, with a lively plan aimed at bewitching the stars, creation, time to unite them in an exercise that dazzles: bringing the obscenity of pain to school, teaching it life and throwing it into virgin but already wounded notes... The imaginative lanes, the expressions that are never too didactic launch the young Italian-French artist with continuity into a border that is never squared, with long uncontrollable banks. One ends up trembling, weeping, reflecting, with implants of light visiting the unexpectedness of living, its often unpretentious limbs, to enter into a gastric lavage at heart height.

One finds oneself, mistakenly, with the presumption that the entire work has dreamlike propensities: it is reality, the truths and lies of living that Gintsugi shows us, in a pentagram tuned to authenticity. We encounter modes of expression that vary, but which undoubtedly make art rock the main reference point. One cannot deny other matrices, classical and pop imprints oiled, as a guarantee of a project very broad in its intentions, even to the point of creating a resounding concept album, even though it may not have been intended. 

Right from the title (a truly exhaustive and powerful English idiomatic phrase) to continue with the touching cover image, everything is positioned, from the start, on the level of a totalising, paralysing undertaking, concluding in the state of need for continuous listening. This is not a sonic ensemble out of step with the present time, nor should the absence of din be mistaken for a clinging to older expressions. The freshness of this incredible talent lies in maturity, to turn the hourglass into a dutiful exercise in understanding so as not to waste anything that is happening.

When, in addition to her main instrument (the piano), strings are heard, small vibrations arrive in the parks of her feeling, perfectly positioning the concept of usability, continuous and incessant. Her sweetness is a sinking probe, bringing foam to the mouth to be spat out, with class, on the keys of her emotional pilgrimage, in a dynamic visit to the souls, shifting accents, dissolving twists and fears. Four singles, two instrumental tracks, a crazy cover song, would be enough to make this record stainless: it is unlikely to be scratched.

Take Lilac Wine: the splendid cover of Elkie Brooks' 1978 song about the loss of a lover with the comfort of wine made from a lilac tree reveals a portentous attention to the colours of her uvula and is sung as if that pain belonged to her, orchestrating it in a mixture of tears and hope.  It is precisely this magnetic need to face what is uncomfortable and contrary that teaches us much on a human level. Music is her first vocabulary, her nascent nerve, her growing up confronted with unrestrained suggestions, with her infinite breath, her coming together with reflections that find their voice in the notes, so that the role of communicating thoughts is not only attributed to words.

The electronics, the timpani, the drums, what seems lateral to the structure is instead an almost invisible magnet that compacts these expressive, emotional, rational cascades, which often become poignant, uncontrollable tides. One can crash in front of this ensemble, one must be prepared and very strong.

These are compositions that reveal impulses, dizziness, planning held together by a balanced bow that knows how to shoot arrows into the sky of every unpredictable need. Gintsugi is an orchestral conductor of a whole that comes at us, employing moments that are more accessible to others in which one feels thrown violently to the ground. Her idiosyncrasies are, I would easily say, summed up by a voice and mode of singing that swings, like a mystical swing, through time, having great points of reference, artists who have made the history of interpretation. Natural talents, undeniable, but consider also that in this album deep, accurate and intense studies cannot escape: everything had to smell close to perfection.

When the sounds of the uvula are absent (after having caused intense trauma), the musical part does likewise: there is no competition, but an acclimatisation in the only desired direction, which is to be not only performing but above all effective. There are moments of great brittleness (the opening Mon Coeur and Hex), only to hear the rustle of clouds caressing our hair, penetrating the skull and reaching the brain. There, thanks to these sparkling sonic earthquakes, everything becomes clay, in a feverish state. There are moments in which the tension seems close to horror, where the clouds of human happenings seem to crash and fall until they reach the belly of planet earth. Others, however, in which the songs seem like invisible, impregnable breaths, conveying colours full of life. Suffering, in this undeniable masterpiece, is not an impediment: instead, I would say an opportunity to learn, to transform blackness into a winning act. Is there space for dreams, can they be seen, pampered, experienced in these tracks? Absolutely not, and it is precisely in this aspect that the greatness of a woman who walks head-on with the wind of contrariety facing her, coming out in pieces, must be exalted: Gintsugi has a series of sweet and powerful weapons to live the present as a will and an attitude.

The Old Scribe will soon write a review on the lyrics: other miracles that make this listening a dutiful and pleasant benefit, above all instructive. In one specific track, we see the feeling emerging that she has learned to draw from a precious source: the track is To Grace, a splendid child of Tori Amos' absurd visionary abilities. Many are the frequentations of her powerful background, but none so decisive: her greatest merit is that she possesses a style of her own, intriguing, overflowing, capable of an unquestionable personal identity. Produced by herself and Andrea Liuzza's label Beautiful Losers (also featured on the album), this feathered vessel is compact, in a momentum that seems to carry behind it trails of smiling tears on a day when everything seems to be subjected to the harsh judgement of a sky full of lightning. Nine explosions with the reins, where everything can go within a film to place its destiny: such a powerful debut will be one of the wonders that will remain in the temporal sphere for the duration of infinity.

I won't write the review song by song, because you can't get inside the wind and because to see a rose bloom you can't put your fingers inside it...

The conviction remains that this is the first true masterpiece in so many years, and to keep it that way, one must be discreet: love it, listen to it, bring it into the centre of our need, but always keep a distance that is called respect, because Gintsugi deserves it more than many others...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

19 Ottobre 2023

Out on 20 October 2023

https://gintsugi.bandcamp.com/album/the-elephant-in-the-room-2