My Review: Dear Company - Scratches Ep

 Inglese

Dear Company  Scratches Ep

Absolute truth does not exist; it is a dramatic lie that lacks, for example, an adequate soundtrack highlighting the irrefutable seal of extremes.

Hence the need for discretion, for whispers, for tenderness, for details that break down impulses, for a method that completes the depth of a narrative intent that above all highlights the goodness of mistakes, losses, dreams full of lead and scratches, here the true protagonists of a magnetic story, materialised in a truly remarkable range of expression. 

This is not a true debut for the Roman duo composed of Elisa Pambianchi and Martino Cappelli: it reveals, instead, that the publication of artistic works has little to do with the actual timing of the whole, as this is a work that shows their lives, their paths, their references, a whole exposed to the sun, but nothing was born on the day when these six sound butterflies found us ready to welcome them. 

A story like a collection, like flowers blooming on rational and emotional ground that has skilfully condensed these compositions into an inevitable outpouring, in which introspection emerges decisively, silence painted with lightness so as not to compromise it, the dialectic of distant means (such as folk sounds immersed in light electronic music and dream pop impulses with ethereal veins), and a continuous feeling that respect for those who do not want to be too disturbed is always highlighted. Profound songs with a light soul, butterflies, in fact.

Life is represented through the effect of footsteps, with traces combed through drones, atmospheres, anxieties, forms of relaxation, the use of ambient music DNA capable of having the same depth as genres more accustomed to finding consensus, an internalisation that manifests itself truthfully, in which depth passes through slow rhythms and carefully crafted sounds, where prayer and hope are secular, domestic, private events. Disillusionment, as if by magic, becomes a force to be welcomed, sadness a daughter to be cherished, neurosis a starting point for shaping any wounds. 

A brilliant work, not suited to those looking for songs as anaesthetics: an immense work in terms of the cultural aspects it explores, with Elisa's skilful textual and dreamlike weaving and Martino's peculiar elaboration. The tension is mystical, mysterious, nourishing, a reservoir of users at the service of an inner journey. An EP that blends the human aspect with the artistic, independence that is not arrogance, caprice, conceit or misery, but a more mature way of making musical art an introspection that gives scratches, in fact, a positive role.

The images, so present in Martino's musical structures, are the algebraic clouds on which Elisa places her voice, rather than her verses. And this is where her singing style reveals itself to be impetuous, devastating, rich, true and concrete: she herself seems to have given her role a different meaning from that with 3+Dead, defining herself through careful breathing, minimalist vocalisations and the choice of words that are both abrasive and velvety, while her sensitivity remains intact.

In a collection of songs in which she is not always present, everything has more value, offering energy and an incredible and incurable romantic inclination. Martino finds in her the perfect singer, with intuition and technical expressive abilities. Pambianchi is not only the one who perfects the story, she is the one who accompanies it, precedes it, becomes its muse, the figure who exudes sensuality and delicate bitterness.

The compositions layer time, lay carpets over decades, in a romantic crescendo, in which the conjugation skills are delicate, in which no forcing raises its voice. 

It feels like being in a silent film, from an unknown time, with messages and messengers busy underwater, without needing to rise to the surface. The songs bring to mind little-known artists and works, developing everything with important personalities and methods. You can feel the fragility of relationships, of existence, of not being able to freeze time. An impressive human manifesto, in which beauty comes from the revelation of who we are. 

Everything develops with reason and emotion intertwined, passionate, eager, in which sound incursions prevail, skilfully defeating the song form. The two of them are interested in working on their obvious fragilities, striving to make their individual riches a safe haven.

The emotional space highlights respect for internalisation, the desire to allow instincts to be channelled into constraints, as an educational method. 

Here Martino's talent becomes a series of miracles impossible to ignore: what famous and celebrated artists have done and for which they have been recognised, he does with the same skill, in a beam of light that resembles a rainbow inside the human mind, all as if transferred to his fingers.  The territories explored encompass a perfect mix of pulsations, elaborations, cerebral surges with a sinuous sense of aesthetics, where hermeticism, complicity, parallel paths, suggestions, hints and mood-driven dialectics converge in a vessel that sways in the chest.

Martino displays his studies, his listening becomes a digital and analogue extension of his thinking, his writing style starts from afar, and in these compositions he inserts the inevitable need to evolve, to build, in his abilities, a mental palace that can also become physical. Dynamics are the main element of the entire work, emblematic of complexity made chewable and digestible, in which folk, ambient, dream pop, darkwave, post-rock, and minimal shoegaze are only the exposure of the lights, but in reality, the electrical cables pass through the underground, the secret system to which there is no access...

Scratches has the intensity of dawn, the preparatory act to the intensity of revelation, the stage on which songs become the tablecloth on which to lay down the labours, the efforts, the interactions between celestial and human breaths, in a space-time that seems to come from great civilisations, wrapped in modern sensibility. But the language, the meaning, the positioning of this work smells of linen, dust, large stones, marble monuments under the gaze of the clouds. 

Elisa and Martino have played with time, working between hidden workshops and the glitter of modern eccentricity, favouring the crossing of human excursions by using the least simple of faculties, slowness, favouring instead the understanding of the origin of these butterflies, which, intact and elegant, leap over the sand of every hourglass. Songs that translate memory, that attach time to reality, wearing the most credible sound costume.

It is also worth emphasising the beauty, depth and added value of a cover that attracts, invites, explains much of the content and is a visual poem, a page of literature that shows density and nuances, attaching different meanings with colours like unfurled sails: as you look at it, you move, you immediately navigate in a sound that will be reiterated and specified with the six compositions. The scratches are vertical, white, as if symbolising the fragility of childhood, with the outline like the future that awaits it...

And now let's learn about the paths taken by these white butterflies, one by one.

Song by song

1 Introduction

Take an autumn night with the gloomy chords of Pieter Nooten (Clan of Xymox) and the visionary poetry of the Humberstone twins (In The Nursery) and you realise how much memory lives in this glacial composition: Martino enters the wounds, finding their rational entrance, without voices, without song form, but with a head that looks to the tail, with the rhythmic illusion in the finale, brief, unsettling and perfect. Spirituality shapes the entire projection of this work, here favoured by a physical skeleton that determines its power and stability. 

2 An Ode To

It is minimalist melancholy, with arpeggios reminiscent of trip hop, measured electronics in a discontinuous flow become the foundation on which Elisa's Hamlet-like singing, with the perfect strategy of vocal doubling, gives the whole a mournful but not desperate feeling, in a silence that wanders beautifully between the chords. The lyrics measure generational decadence and the impossibility of living except in solitude, with the fall of light. Echoes of Japan's Quiet Life make us understand how the Roman duo do not forget the avant-garde, the march of disciplined notes and sombre chords. A cradle full of silk given by the union of the pastel colours of the music and the stage of Elisa's writing.

3 Beyond

Between the post-rock impulses of early Explosions in the Sky and the penetrating Anatolian folk and Turkish rock forms, Beyond is a chandelier that swings between the East and clean chaos, with a layering that leads to a sensual dance, full of breaths, and vocals that enhance the whole, like an apnoea that communicates a wound...

4 Wonderboy

The Xmal Deutschland of the first part of the song opens magnificently with the creaking of a synth reminiscent of Christian Death's Catastrophe Ballet, but then Elisa, with her veil over the strings, becomes the rain of an ancient storm, coming from the 1980s, in lyrics inclined towards the desire for change, while Martino broadens the horizons, starting from the sky and ending up on the seabed with a solo that is every bit as good as Peter Frampton's, with a very high sensitivity, like a voice that alternates with that of his partner, with the ability to control the sustain and enhance the vision of the notes...

5 Elevation

A palace that becomes physical, with the sparkle of the guitar and the tremor of the distorted bass, to a distortion that establishes the boundary between spiritual elevation and drama. The stop and go allows the six strings to grate everything. The drumming embraces the atmosphere, which also manages to be sensual. A great ability to connect Buñuel's passion for skies full of surprises and the exponential ardour of Virginia Woolf's writings, which need no praise here. Mysterious, decadent, dreamy, the song also amazes with its measured, unexpected progression.... 

6 Storm, Black

Elisa takes on the guise of a melodic witch, with words that play in the rain, with flights of feathers, angelic choirs, while the musical fabric ranges, like fragments in search of connections (found), to become the perfect farewell, giving hopeful breaths, without, however, anything that can make us forget the scratches... Balanced, enchanting and magical, it finds in its finale a form of suspension that flows into a storm similar to that of Dead Can Dance's album Within of a Dying Sun, in which awareness and richness visit fear. A poetic, vibrant, nervous conclusion that smells of perfection...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

29 January 2026

Dear Company:

Elisa Pambianchi

Martino Cappelli

Giuseppe Marino - Bass 

Giulio Maschio (Aguirre) - Drums

Featuring:

Simona Ferrucci (Winter Severity Index) - Synth on the track Wonderboy

Adriano Vincenti (Macelleria Mobile di Mezzanotte) - (noise effects) on the tracks Storm and Black