My Review: Julian Cope - I Dream the Cosmos Atavistic

 Julian Cope - I Dreamt the Cosmos Atavistic

To witness only a part of the possibilities available to us means limiting our consciousness, stopping knowledge in a place where the flows seem to exclude anything else. This concept applies to all forms of life. In music, we have examples of insights that are not accepted or known, and are scattered in the mechanisms described at the beginning. The discomfort of commitment, of internalisation, of unease that provides different information is not usually practised.

Here we find ourselves discussing a work that strips away what we are accustomed to consuming, with a celestial installation conducted primarily at a slow pace, dispersing musical clichés and every form that is generally considered appealing, easy, and fluid in its digestion.

Julian Cope's new album is a skilful rebellion, entirely rooted in the luminous mantra created by the contact between the heavens and the musician's mind, here engaged in translating spirituality and research into a generous work of connections, in which the studio is a giant lens that makes every detail described seem tiny. Minimalist, expansive, energetic and misleading, these three tracks are a wonderful exploration of images that cannot be photographed through immobility, but rather through the continuous X-ray of introspection that leaves input and questions in the brain.

The degree of total indifference in every reception is remarkable: we find ourselves with our senses on edge, with fear, with the sky advancing like a snail into our selves, unaware of the enormous power of this exercise. What seem to be bombastic, annoying, boring and uninteresting noises are in fact the mechanisms that we silence, disown, ignore and do not nurture. The spectacular aspect is the whispers, the slow streams of sound that suddenly appear and then immediately disappear: a challenge to logic and patience, a sensationally intelligent spite capable of exploring the invisible.  

And when suddenly the compositions diverge from the long minutes that preceded them, in which everything seemed set in stone, there is the cunning of a change of colour, of gear, which also offers a growing narrative tension, in which the perspective draws uncertainties and tremors.

An use of the theory of bewilderment in a manner typical of silent cinema, but without subtitles... 

Everything is landscape, uninhabited and solemn, with theatrical hypnosis that stores our reactions to make them pathetic: Julian smiles mockingly, with his solemn meditation, his mantras and his glaciers moving towards a black hole that we do not immediately perceive. But it is precisely this dark space that turns on the light bulb, making our fear of light, of fake melody, of our way of understanding music, practicable within us. 

A fruitful study leads us to write down our reactions as we listen, as if we were both patients and psychologists, with the truth maturing, listening again and again to this permeating flow. Our thoughts become a spaceship, flying beneath the ocean, swimming in the ice tongues of Everest, walking in the lava of a volcano and dying on contact with the first comet encountered.

The trance-like state we experience breaks down our defences, does not produce addiction and colours our perceptions, transporting us into a state of wonder when we hear the Liverpool artist's voice utter the words of the title, during Psalm Zero, in a semi-song that becomes emotional and hormonal therapy for this penetrable and impenetrable artistic prodigy: everything depends on our mental and physical elasticity.

A terrifying prospect for comedy lovers, stuck in a metal chair, with fragments of sound penetrating our every reaction: IDTCA is torture that dilates the blood and turns the mind into a spring, in a final leap that makes us forget our ignorance... 

Who Put All Of This is a spiritual settlement in search of a plot, using sounds that move in an industrial area, noises and electric shocks inside a forest that raises its nose towards the night sky, with an ethereal final expansion.

Stargarden reveals darkness, in a gloomy and slow search for a loop that, magically, never arrives. Severa advances with a bombastic note, like a microscope analysing every particle of the psyche, in a thirty-minute analytical session in which silence offers silver stars...

Psalm Zero is a horror film that benefits from Julian's voice, free to express a thickening of the harmonic plot, an orderly chaos, with an industrial attitude in the chromosomes of an ambient genre, like an impossible-to-avoid crossroads. Electronic tracks shake up the journey and we find ourselves in a spatial whirlwind.

An animalistic work, in which the elements of nature arrive in the place furthest removed from any modern expression of the concept of music. Everything clashes, involving hard work and patience, inflicting a powerful defeat on undeserving taste and sowing the hope of a metamorphosis that will restore the ancient role of listening. Not a sterile anachronism, but an invitation to slow down, even in music, the rhythms, the human perversions, to bring us back into contact with our surroundings, like a secular observation of creation.

It is not artistic courage, crisis, madness or anything else, but rather a trespassing into the places where a more secure and balanced soul is constructed. Sensible, majestic, oppressive in a truly celestial way (to create allegories, metaphors and flows of selected energies), this is truly an authentic work of abandonment and distance...

Simply a monumental journey of aggregations and rejections, from which we can only depart to immerse our tears in the irrigation channels of our minds...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

22 January 2026

https://merchandiser.headheritage.co.uk/products/i-dream-the-cosmos-atavistic

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxOdPtLRV6i3MbQ5KAM4sRZXNMXRBLK7P

La mia recensione: Julian Cope - I Dream the Cosmos Atavistic

 Julian Cope - I Dreamt the Cosmos Atavistic

Presenziare solo a una parte delle possibilità che abbiamo a disposizione significa limitare la coscienza, far arrestare la conoscenza in un luogo dove i flussi sembrano escludere altro. Un concetto che vale per ogni forma di vita. Nella musica abbiamo esempi di approfondimenti che non sono accolti, conosciuti, e vengono sparsi nei meccanismi di cui si è scritto all'inizio. La scomodità di un impegno, della interiorizzazione, di un disagio che dia informazioni diverse solitamente non viene praticata. Ci si ritrova qui a parlare di un lavoro che desertifica ciò di cui normalmente siamo abituati a nutrirci, con una installazione celeste condotta soprattutto al rallentamento, alla dispersione dei cliché musicali, di ogni forma che generalmente è considerata accattivante, agevole, fluida nella sua masticazione. Il nuovo album di Julian Cope è una ribellione sapiente, sistemata totalmente nel mantra luminoso dato dal contatto tra la volta celeste e la mente del musicista, qui impegnato a tradurre la spiritualità e la ricerca in un generoso lavoro di contatti, in cui lo studio è una lente gigante per rendere piccolissimo ogni dettaglio descritto. Minimalisti, espansivi, energici e fuorvianti, questi tre brani sono una meravigliosa esplorazione di immagini che non possono essere fotografate attraverso l'immobilità, bensì con la radiografia continua di una introspezione che lascia nel cervello input e interrogativi. Notevole la quota di menefreghismo totale di ogni accoglienza: ci troviamo con i sensi tesi, con la paura, con il cielo che come una lumaca avanza nel nostro io ignaro dell’enorme forza di questo esercizio. Ciò che sembrano rumori roboanti, fastidiosi, noiosi e non interessanti in realtà sono i meccanismi che tacciamo, disconosciamo, ignoriamo e non fertilizziamo. L'aspetto spettacolare sono i bisbigli, i lenti flussi sonori che all’improvviso appaiono per scomparire immediatamente: una sfida alla logica, alla pazienza, un dispetto clamorosamente intelligente e in grado di esplorare l'invisibile.  

E quando improvvisamente le composizioni si diversificano dai lunghi minuti precedenti, nei quali tutto sembrava una pietra ferma, ecco l'astuzia di un cambio di colore, di marcia, che offre pure una crescente tensione narrativa, in cui la prospettiva disegna insicurezze e tremori.

Un adoperare la teoria dello smarrimento in una modalità tipica del cinema muto, ma priva dei sottotitoli… Tutto è paesaggio, disabitato e solenne, con la teatrale ipnosi che immagazzina le nostre reazioni per farle diventare patetiche: Julian sorride beffardo, con la sua meditazione solenne, i suoi mantra e i suoi ghiacciai moventi verso un buco nero di cui non abbiamo percezione immediata. Ma è proprio lo spazio oscuro ad accendere la lampadina, a rendere praticabile in noi la paura della luce, della finta melodia, del nostro modo di intendere la musica. Uno studio proficuo ci conduce a scrivere, durante l’ascolto, le nostre reazioni, come se fossimo al contempo pazienti e psicologi, con la verità da stagionare, ascolto dopo ascolto di questo flusso permeante. Il nostro pensiero diventa una navicella spaziale, che vola nei sottofondi dell’oceano, nuota nelle lingue di ghiaccio dell'Everest, cammina nella lava di un vulcano e si spegne a contatto con la prima cometa incontrata.

Lo stato di trance provato disarciona le difese, non produce assuefazione e colora le percezioni, ci mette in transito con lo stupore quando sentiamo la voce dell’artista di Liverpool pronunciare le parole del titolo, durante Psalm Zero, in un semi-canto, che diventa terapia emotiva e ormonale di questo prodigio artistico penetrabile e impenetrabile: tutto dipende dalla nostra elasticità mentale e corporea.

Una possibilità terrorifica per chi ama le commedie, stando bloccati su una sedia di metallo, con briciole di suoni a penetrare ogni nostra reazione: IDTCA è una tortura che dilata il sangue e fa della mente una molla, in un balzo finale che ci rende dimentichi della nostra ignoranza… 

Who Put All Of This è l'insediamento spirituale alla ricerca di una trama, adoperando suoni che si muovono in un abitato industriale, rumori e scariche elettriche all'interno di  un bosco che alza il naso verso il cielo notturno, con una dilatazione finale eterea.

Stargarden palesa tenebre, in una tetra e lenta ricerca di un loop, che, magicamente, non arriva. Severa, avanza con una nota roboante, come un microscopio analizza ogni particella della psiche, in una seduta analitica di trenta minuti in cui il silenzio offre stelle argentate…

Psalm Zero è un film horror che gode del  beneficio della voce di Julian, libero poi di esprimere un ispessimento della trama armonica, un caos ordinato, con un’attitudine industrial nei cromosomi di un filone ambient, come un incrocio impossibile da evitare. Tracce elettroniche scuotono il percorso e ci si ritrova in una girandola spaziale.

Un'opera animalesca, in cui gli elementi della natura approdano nel luogo che si pone maggiormente lontano da ogni espressione moderna del concetto di musica. Tutto stride, coinvolge il duro lavoro di pazienza, infligge al non meritevole gusto una poderosa sconfitta e semina la speranza di una metamorfosi che ridia all’esercizio dell'ascolto un ruolo antico. Non un anacronismo sterile bensì un invito a rallentare, anche nella musica, i ritmi, le perversioni umane, per ricondurci al contatto con il circostante, come un’osservazione laica del creato.

Non è coraggio artistico, crisi, pazzia o quant'altro, bensì uno sconfinamento nei luoghi della costruzione di una anima più sicura e bilanciata. Sensato, maestoso, opprimente in un modo davvero celestiale (per creare allegorie, metafore e flussi di energie selezionate), questa è davvero un’opera autentica di abbandono e distanze…

Semplicemente un monumentale percorso di aggregazioni e rifiuti, da cui possiamo solo partire per far immergere il nostro pianto nei canali irrigatori delle nostre menti…. 

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

22 Gennaio 2026

https://merchandiser.headheritage.co.uk/products/i-dream-the-cosmos-atavistic

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxOdPtLRV6i3MbQ5KAM4sRZXNMXRBLK7P

My Review: Penelope Trappes - A Requiem + Live in Salford (25th April 2025, Trinity Church)

 

Penelope Trappes - A Requiem + Live in Salford (25th April 2025, Trinity Church)

Every truth entails descents and ascents, and when the subject is the need for a dialogue with an otherworldly presence (specifically everything that revolves around the dead), a visual and sensorial scenario emerges that paralyses, seduces, induces feelings and reasoning to make new discoveries, in a journey in which density is measured by songs like blankets, veils, ascending exploratory eddies, in which the result is a reasoned and useful shock.

With her fifth album, Penelope traces yet another educational path of those who in their search compose a new piece of their soul, this time also helping themselves to the cello, the sacred imprint of new spiritual marriages that allow her path to be lucid. A mass that bypasses dogmas, that paralyses walls, that makes fear and fears welcoming, with sounds and clusters of notes that precede and follow the enchantment of a voice on patrol, capable of neuroses, impulses, frustrations and icy tears, in a solstice in which the movement of its inner sun goes out of orbit to meet the moon, the earth, life and even death, in a resounding celebration of mysteries strung together, tepid, vibrant, necessary and complete.

The peculiarities of her artistic axioms are maintained, her integrity, her beautiful obstinacy for the contemplation of vibrant emotion that has always distinguished her. Music as expectation, as an obligatory and reflective muteness towards another dimension, the dreaded one, of death, but experienced by her with elegance and the incredible feat in managing to transform it into an unexpected enchantment. 

A journey that, starting from the woods of Scotland, lands in the mystical channels, the sensorial ones, in the songs of witches and wandering souls in which the seal of slowness allows expansion and understanding, passing through an ancient folk, here camouflaged, almost segregated by electronic forms that however intend to ensure that the breaths of that musical genre are free to leave the historical traces of a mode that has always made contact with human nature a priority. Penelope enhances the play of light, fragments cognitive forms and makes us perform a series of remarkable acrobatics in order to be the wings of her writing, of her inner courtyard, to be the burning light of a timid but capable candle. 

The rituals shown thus become necessities, the tail end of impetuses and impulses that flow into the sacredness of perhaps unknown messages and forms with the task of shaking. Life is thus shown as a painful perimeter in which the deepest conquest is its experimentation, making the memory not a photo album but a series of encounters with characters who dispense wisdom and mysteries (druids above all), to drag everything into the vortex of rapid flights, although the music is slow and always full of ash and smoke. Her tears at the loss of the past are resoundingly genuine, translated and transported to the pyramid zone of connections with an afterlife that fortifies her soul and distances her from perdition. Her visions multiply, the grafts of ancient sacredness seem to be uncontainable fragrances, in which grief is neither the beginning nor the end of it all, but rather a travelling companion, a friend, a propensity (conscious or otherwise) with which she relates splendidly. 

Not songs but candelabra, cognitive pills that come from her native places, a mnemonic exercise that directs her in the choice of contact with the truth, in the obedient form of parental respect, in a journey that crosses flashes and descends into comprehension, with mournings that become expressive, liturgical chords, contaminating and precious, for an album that proves to be a diary in which to learn to write a summary and a propensity, a foretaste of the Penelope that will be, through this artistic sharing, which embraces us and delivers the awareness of a maturity that has transformed blackness and tears into a necessary and creative space.

Her eye (phoenix-like Arabian phoenix and migrating angel) transfers into the grooves a continuous testimony of conscious, slowed down and therefore exalted and exhilarating jets, in which the individual notes are diadems free to rise and stand out, creating the possibility of successions that bewitch and attract like the infinity of death…

A work in which jazz, experimentation, neofolk, the nails of Diamanda Galas and the nervous waves of Zola Jesus are only the outline of a polar circle that freezes the fury of existence, transforming it into a fatuous fire. The Australian artist creates miracles, torments, crumbles, continuous processions, with an artistic production that makes the whole thing flawless, in which the half-light, the intensity of the darkness, the voices of spirits are all messengers of future contacts. They bypass time, they attack with grace, to be the Sistine Chapel of our time, in which new gods and new human forms, emerging from the study of the dead, dispense new figures and new identities. 

The dramatic nature of the tale and the images constitutes the anticipation of our conscience, a legacy that, starting from music, swallows the impervious paths of our fears, to celebrate them, console them but above all tame them. The condensation of elements shatters security, with a rational implant that sows humidity and dryness in the breaths: a long anaesthetising jet to sugarcoat bitter pills, but in the end, after repeated listening, one feels in an ancient time, like living entities, victors over death because they have become immortal spirits guided by a necessary madness...

Salford, concert

In the cosy, dark church, the artist appears with a headdress that acts as an emissary, as a storyteller from ancient times, delighting the audience who, silent and pleasantly shocked, watch a performance in which her latest album A Requiem is performed, to bring emotions together within long reflections. And it is magic, nightmare, hypnosis, with her breath into the microphone that becomes a mantra, a chill that chills the walls, making the superfluous something to be abandoned for good. A lucid performance that leaves you bruised, your eyes like meteors on a journey with no set goals but in which Penelope shows us density. New grafts, compared to the original songs, allow for further insights and the manifest awareness that with this latest work she has written her masterpiece, a summary and expansion of her cognitive gravity. Her voice, never overly effected (she doesn't need it, she is already perfect, without any doubt), and her hands are sacred, hypnotic and seductive dances, with which she manages to manifest herself as a conceptual transfer that makes watching and listening to the concert the idyllic cognitive terminal of this new educational miracle of hers…

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

27th April 2025

https://penelopetrappes.bandcamp.com/album/a-requiem

My Review: Dexter Britain - Stay With Me

Dexter Britain - Stay With Me

The enchanted world comes out of the shell of its time, takes up residence within the skilful hands of a British composer, accustomed like an irresistible vice, to visiting the mental planes of poignant dreams. It is not difficult to recognise his style, his approach, it is difficult to understand his direction: his music is a dispersion of salts, of liquors that melt in the belly. Stay With Me is a medieval spark that, escaping from its haunted countryside of merriment, comes to visit our chests: it will be aching, because there is no opposition to this autumn storm. 

From the outset, Simon Robinson, aka Dexter Britain, has decided to isolate the idea of agglomerated pressures and stylise his ideas, as thunderstorms do.

You hear these notes, bacilli, atoms, showers of harmonious sorrows crashing on the staff, and the thrill grips you. We are in the vicinity of a classical aria, with instruments from the 1800s being accompanied by an ipad, by technology in that even deceptions hold hands, can live close...

A slow progression of smooth-backed violins, with the sky just a stone's throw away, but then it slows down, the wings take on the weight of the world and we arrive in the vicinity of the earth's soil. The cymbals and string quartet take aim: the melody and rhythm must necessarily travel down the avenue of drama that makes no concessions. Hence the intermediate planes, the scratchy strings with the Ambient base that torpedo the chaos and take flight.

The chords and the harmonic turn are short, but are repeated with the inserts of an overbearing arrangement that enhances the piano and tightens the camera towards the crash: the harpsichord, methodical and gymnastic, only appears in the second half.

You know what doesn't work in this track? The delirium that snuffs out your breath, the fruit of a miracle that has a name and a surname, that dares to sing and render us useless, burdened with emotions without the instruction booklet. 

She, the angel who has no eyes but feels our hearts, ascends into the circle of our intimacy and melts it away. Jenny Maloney: she won't tell you anything, but the old scribe hasn't been able to stand her for years, because her prowess, deadly, always resembles a war between souls in search of the last inflicted punch.

Extraordinary, intense, she puts her words down as if she were cooking existence inside a pot full of dreams, surely glowing.

She has the good sense to absent herself when the cello and violin, halfway through the piece, say goodbye to everyone and step onto the stage of indigestible sound.

Little notes return and then the finale, with drums, drums, for a few seconds, because nothing has to take off. And Jenny there, like a golden eagle, ready to smile at us before the lethal bite: she and the strings have taken the right direction, the chest from above can still be seen and the aim is perfect. 

The dramatic sense is a deception, make yourself small, eliminate the feeling that has already killed you and you will hear how the continuous tension is nothing but a gallant invitation to get on the merry-go-round of an emotion that, like the torrential rain that stops only when the enjoyment ceases, will have a few minutes to spend.

We are sure that every sound articulation depicted here by Simon is a lullaby for adults in search of a kiss, lasting almost six minutes, like a madness that finds peace with the last grimace...

Every tear will inhabit this music that, starting with Classical, visiting electronics, and ending in an angelic suite, will be able to make you feel the intoxication of those thunders, of a polite thunderstorm that will wet your hair, so as not to hurt you too much...Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

2nd June 2023

https://dexterbritain.bandcamp.com/album/stay-with-me

La mia Recensione: Dexter Britain - Stay With Me

Dexter Britain - Stay With Me

Il mondo incantato esce dal guscio del suo tempo, prende casa dentro le sapienti mani di un compositore inglese, avvezzo come un vizio irresistibile, a visitare i piani mentali di sogni struggenti. Non è difficile riconoscere il suo stile, il suo approccio, lo è capirne la direzione: la sua musica è una dispersione di sali, di liquori che si sciolgono nel ventre. Stay With Me è una scintilla medievale che, fuoriuscita dalle sue campagne infestate di allegria, viene a visitarci il petto: saranno dolori, perché non c’è opposizione che tenga davanti a questo temporale autunnale. 

Sin dall'esordio Simon Robinson, alias Dexter Britain, ha deciso di isolare l’idea di pressapochismi agglomerati e di stilizzare le sue idee, come fanno appunto i temporali.

Senti queste note, bacilli, atomi, piogge di dolori armoniosi che si infrangono sul pentagramma, e il brivido ti imprigiona. Siamo nei pressi di un’aria classica, con strumenti del 1800 che si fanno accompagnare da un ipad, dalla tecnologia in quanto anche gli inganni si tengono per mano, possono vivere vicini…

Un lento procedere di violini con la schiena liscia, con il cielo a due passi ma poi si rallenta, le ali prendono il peso del mondo e si arriva nei dintorni del suolo terrestre. I cimbali e il quartetto di archi  prendono la mira: la melodia e il ritmo debbono necessariamente percorrere il viale del dramma che non fa sconti. Ecco quindi spiegati i piani intermedi, le corde graffianti con la base Ambient che silurano il caos e prendono il volo.

Gli accordi e il giro armonico sono brevi, ma vengono ripetuti con gli inserti di un prepotente arrangiamento che esalta il piano e stringe la telecamera verso lo schianto: il clavicembalo, metodico e palestrato, appare solo nella seconda parte.

Sapete cosa non funziona in questo brano?

Il delirio che ti spegne il respiro, il frutto di un miracolo che ha un nome e un cognome, che osa cantare e renderci inutili, gravati da emozioni senza il libretto di istruzioni. 

Lei, l’angelo che non ha gli occhi ma sente i nostri cuori, sale nel girone della nostra intimità e la scioglie. Jenny Maloney: non vi dirà nulla, ma il vecchio scriba non la sopporta da anni, perché la sua bravura, micidiale, assomiglia sempre a una guerra tra anime in cerca dell’ultimo pugno inflitto.

Straordinaria, intensa, appoggia le parole come se cucinasse l'esistenza dentro una pentola piena di sogni, sicuramente incandescenti.

Ha il buon senso di assentarsi quando il violoncello e il violino, a metà brano, salutano tutti e si mettono sul palcoscenico del suono indigesto.

Piccole note tornano e poi il finale, coi tamburi, la batteria, per pochi secondi, perché nulla deve decollare. E Jenny lì, come un’aquila reale, pronta a sorriderci prima del morso letale: lei e gli archi hanno preso la direzione giusta, il petto dall’alto si vede comunque bene e la mira è perfetta. 

Il senso drammatico è un inganno, fatevi piccoli, eliminate il sentimento che vi ha già ucciso e sentirete come la tensione continua non è altro che un invito galante a salire sul giro di giostra di una emozione che, come la pioggia torrenziale che si ferma solo quando il godimento cessa, avrà pochi minuti da spendere.

Siamo sicuri che ogni articolazione sonora qui raffigurata da Simon sia  una ninnananna per adulti in cerca di un bacio, che dura quasi sei minuti, come una follia che trova pace con l’ultima smorfia…

Ogni lacrima abiterà questa musica che, partendo da quella Classica, visitando l’elettronica, per finire in una suite angelica, sarà in grado di farvi sentire l’ebbrezza di quei tuoni, di un temporale educato che vi bagnerà i capelli, per non farvi troppo male…

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

2 Giugno 2023

https://dexterbritain.bandcamp.com/album/stay-with-me

My Review: Antipole & Paris Alexander - Bleached

 Antipole & Paris Alexander - Bleached 

There is no doubt, listening to this new song, taken from the forthcoming album Crystalline, that the two artists have written an immense circle of beauty, amidst vapours and subtle mysteries, encompassed within talents that know how to develop research.

If we take Bleached, we notice how Paris Alexander's pen and Karl Morten Dahl's hand are one and the same, blinking to create an atmosphere filled with a tamed tension, like an armed stream of consciousness that comes out to make the universe stimulated in welcoming this stalagmite, ingenious and effective, to connect us to an unconscious that must come out of its shell. 

On a Coldwave track with a discreet twinning with the sumptuous Nordic Darkwave, here are guitar and synth sparkles that make the track a sad-eyed meteor without leading to depression but certifying, from Paris Alexander's splendid words, that there is an obvious connection with possession that must be manifested. The guitar is a suffocating dusting of the useless that lurks over the soul: Karl, like a magician who doesn't need words, wiggles his fingers with a sequence of notes that disarm, fascinate, make our mood pleasantly gloomy.  And he knows how to keep only the indispensable active, because of his class that never encompasses what is not needed. For his part, Alexander approaches the microphone with a vocal that contains the right balance, style, effective in making his lyrics become physical, between sighs and a journey towards a baritone mode that suits him. 

If desolation and surrender can be seen, then the song will make them a dance movement, but by the end of the listening, new energy will magically arrive to give you strength...

We are taken, enraptured, conquered and there is no doubt that the two have put together an album that will teach us and give us the bridge between the real and the oneiric, on which we can walk whenever we want...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Supino

1st May 2023

https://antipole.bandcamp.com/track/bleached

La mia Recensione: Antipole & Paris Alexander - Bleached

 Antipole & Paris Alexander - Bleached 

Non vi sono dubbi, ascoltando questa nuova canzone, tratta dall'imminente album Crystalline, che i due artisti abbiano scritto un immenso circolo di bellezza, tra vapori e sottili misteri, inglobati all’interno di talenti che sanno come sviluppare la ricerca.

Se prendiamo Bleached, notiamo come la penna di Paris Alexander e la mano di Karl Morten Dahl siano un tutt’uno che ammicca a creare un’atmosfera pregna di una tensione addomesticata, come un flusso armato di consapevolezza che esce per rendere l’universo stimolato nell’accoglienza di questa stalagmite, geniale ed efficace, per connetterci a un inconscio che deve uscire dal guscio. 

Su un tracciato Coldwave con un gemellaggio discreto con la sontuosa Darkwave nordica, ecco che scintillii di chitarra e di synth rendono il brano una meteora dagli occhi tristi senza condurre alla depressione ma certificando, dalle splendide parole di Paris Alexander, che esiste un evidente connubio con il possesso che deve essere manifestato. La chitarra è una soffocante spolverata dell’inutile che si apposta sull’anima: Karl, come un mago a cui non servono parole, agita le sue dita con una sequenza di note che disarmano, affascinano, rendono piacevolmente cupo il nostro umore.  E sa come tenere attivo solamente l’indispensabile, per via della sua classe che mai ingloba ciò che non serve. Dal canto suo, Alexander si approccia al microfono con un cantato che contiene il giusto equilibrio, stile, efficace per far diventare fisico il suo testo, tra sospiri e un viaggio verso una modalità baritonale che gli si addice. 

Se la desolazione e l’arrendevolezza possono essere viste, allora ecco che la canzone saprà renderle un movimento di danza ma, alla fine dell’ascolto, arriveranno magicamente delle nuove energie per darvi forze…

Veniamo presi, rapiti, conquistati e non vi è dubbio alcuno che i due abbiano confezionato un album che saprà erudirci e donarci il ponte, tra il vero e l’onirico, su cui camminare ogni volta che lo vorremo…

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Supino

1 Maggio 2023

https://antipole.bandcamp.com/track/bleached

My Review: Scenius - Chinese Room

 Scenius - Chinese Room

After the beautiful High Low that appeared in the compilation "ZEITGEIST+ Vol. 2", by the phenomenal Cold Transmission, the duo from Leeds is back with a new classy performance, a Synth Pop pill that welcomes mutations and influences, in a physical journey of strobe lights that make us dance with dark glasses, for a lyric that makes us enter a room and leave it with questions, like a gentle puzzle that enhances awareness. Words that have the bitter taste of dissatisfaction and bewilderment that are perfectly placed in the music, like a pair built to give more value to the whole. Here we are squeezed into a Chinese concrete structure, electrified and mystical, with the city's musical history beautifully summed up and amplified. Nothing to add: the English band is capable of illuminating existential malaise and transforming it into a splendid melancholic song...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Supino

30th April 2023

https://scenius.bandcamp.com/track/chinese-room?from=search&search_item_id=278864167&search_item_type=t&search_match_part=%3F&search_page_id=2572981507&search_page_no=0&search_rank=1&logged_in_menubar=true