Well this looks like an interesting and exotic release, and Italian musician and composer Luca Olivieri has drawn together a lengthy roll-call of musicians to assist in the realisation of this, his latest album.
‘Angelina’ is perhaps a little ‘Tubular Bells’ (albeit with an evocative air of Parisienne pavements in the rain) in its combination of gliding synths and smooth guitars, and his segues seamlessly into ‘Chrome’ which begins promisingly enough with some nicely arranged minor chords, but soon dilutes itself into a stream of Muzak. The easy bongo playing and chiming synthesised glockenspiel of ‘Lontaba Presenza’ are similarly background, until the faux brass and / or woodwind draught in. It takes a turn for the dark with a key change around the three and a half minute mark, but it’s rather too little, too late, and the retro space-age sounds of ‘Il Sogno Di Napo’ are simply too much bad sci-fi, even if they do rapidly give way to something that sounds like a half-speed cover of the Lambada.
‘L’atessa’ is a brief but moody interlude, the rumble of thunder introducing darker evocations, but it’s promptly swept aside with the pan-pile chillout of ‘Un Mondo Gegreto.’ Herein lies what I see as being the fundamental shortcoming of ‘La Quarta Dimensione’ – it’s all rather one-dimensional, and the moments that hint at hidden depths are all too brief – so fleeting, in fact, one wonders if they aren’t imagined.
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There’s an undeniable ‘soundtrack’ quality to some of the tracks, but in listening to ‘La Quarta Dimensione,’ I can’t help but compare it to the works of J.G. Thirlwell, and Foetus, whose ‘Limb’ I praised recently. Side by side, as examples of music that can be considered to be in some sense ‘contemporary classical,’ Olivieri’s work simply falls short.
Overall, the compositions lack texture, depth and breadth. There’s no sense of scope or musical vision. There’s really not all that much detail in the arrangement and I’m left feeling largely unfulfilled and unimpressed. I want big soundscapes. I want to be blown away, or perhaps more accurately swept away in widescreen sonic enormity. Instead, the lack of real range, both in terms of dynamic range and musical range, accentuated by the unimaginative and clinically digital recording, leaves me feeling confined and somewhat empty.
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