There's a bewitching darkness to be found in Italian electroacoustic composer and producer Francesco Giannico's recent collection L'immagine di me, lontano, an album of sonic soundscapes that feel like a wordless, imageless movie; one full of neo-noir scenery and shady characters. Having written a thesis on the history of film music for university, Giannico merges his academic sensibilities with unhinged experimentalism on the often exigent, always rich nine tracks.
Replete with spluttery electronics, tenebrous ambiences, and sinister motifs, the album is a transient and deeply meditative collection of freeform electroacoustic musings. Comprising a multitude of auditory sources collected over a year and a half period, Giannico attempts to recreate the memory of childhood by colliding disparate elements together, seemingly at random though held together by reverb. The result is an illusory and often vague hodgepodge of sounds that never want for intensity, though they may lack any graspable structures for the less adventurous listener.
The gentle backbone of "Anxiety" is given flairs of erratic wind instruments and, at over eight minutes, is the longest track on the collection, feeling like its oceanic centrepiece. Elsewhere, on "Le cose che ti hanno sorretto", sweeping cinematic strings play under disturbing industrial clatters, while the closing track, "Dall'interno", hints at a hidden beauty that was there all along. More than anything, this album imbues a sense of inquisitive dread on the listener, who finds themself thrust into a chaotic world of equally perplexing and fascinating abstract music.
Unyieldingly visceral, L'immagine di me, lontano finds Giannico at the top of his obscure and often challenging game.
★★★★