Wednesday, January 28, 2015



Enjoying this six-track self-titled EP by Stromboli  on Maple Death Records.

Made by a mysterious Bolognese using lap steel and analog organ, it's basically post-rock. Not the loud-quiet-loud that passes for p-r these days, though....   closer to the p-r of the early Nineties wot got me excited enough to conceptualise the terrain in the first place. Think Main (before they went totally musique concrete), Seefeel, Labradford, that sort of thing. (Also Cluster II.  -  proto-p-r, essentially.) Isolationist, even - a word which pops up in the press release:

You are across the road, staring into a building, it’s dark outside and you can just make out a light shining inside from a distant window. Stromboli’s debut EP is that light: a dense ambient propulsive opera created over the course of two years in Bologna. The man behind Stromboli is inspired by limitations, it’s his area of expertise, his confidence. Balance and composure as a mental state, only hinting at harsh noise, an isolationist toiling over his 4 track tape machine, a lap steel guitar and an ancient analog organ. Describing boundaries and territories through drones, city dwelling rhythms, noise landscapes and elegant melodies, Stromboli defies what is traditionally associated with the ambient genre, by creating a beautiful dark psychedelic rotating world.


Stromboli’s self-titled EP is Maple Death Records’ second release and was mastered by Brian Pyle (Ensemble Economique). It comes as a limited edition yellow-ochre (100 copies) cassette tape, inlay printed on thick Modigliani Neve paper. Photography by Giulia Mazza and design by Emanuela Drei. Mp3 download card is included.