Claudio Merlini – Colours of music

1 review for Claudio Merlini – Colours of music

1. 

   Sylvain Lupari / Guts of Darkness – 2022-11-22

   Another discovery from the English label, Claudio Merlini is an artist who colors his music of a plentiful sound fauna on much diversified rhythms. The Colours of Music is his 2nd album and the Italian synthesist takes the skin of an EMs Salvator Dali by offering 11 tracks of which structures, even the shortest, are in constants procrastinations with uncountable samplings, as vocal as sound, which are transplanted in so many orchestrations and arrangements to be made turn pale Art of Noise. Apparently inspired by Tangerine Dreams Le Parc area and Jean Michel Jarres synth pop, Claudio Merlini dismounts constantly the listener by spreading a surprising know-how over very lively tracks and beautiful ballads which are dying to explode. A difficulty classifiable album, so much the disparity of styles and structures diverge from tracks to tracks and even inside those tracks.

   Distant Sky shows the enormous interbreeding of styles and kinds on a very short track that starts with tribal vocalizes where voices and ethereal flutes become entangled on percussions which try to hammer a slow and heavy rhythm. A mesmerizing rhythm which twirls in spiral on a surprising mixture of tribal and science fiction atmospheres, softened by a suave mellotron that has a fluty flavor. The track explodes with good percussion striking, a synth which frees its ethereal layers among a fine syncopated line and a skillful mixture of vocal samplings. Sticking Distant Sky finale, Images of a Crystal Sun is a fine ballad which floats in the hazes of a synth with multiple sound hybridities. A synth breeze with Tangerine Dreams Le Parc flavor opens Across Green Mountains. The tempo is curt and hatched, hammered by percussions and random synth strata. A track which exploits ethnic flavors and big orchestral arrangements, with a rhythmic at two speeds which runs on a fluid synth la TD, to end its race towards a more syncopated line. Eternal Dreams in Blue is another beautiful ballad with a rich tone which is flowering up on crystalline chords and pulsating surges of a hybrid synth. We find all characteristics of sweet sentimental ballads with a beautiful fluty synth which pours under fine percussions and a beautiful line of bass la Patrick O’ Hearn. Free Fall – Any Colour Will Do aims right its naming with different structures which are grafting in an array of tones as alive as melodious. A track which embraces structures at once jazzy and of soft rock with tribal rhythms under good orchestrations, where riffs of electric guitars are crossing those of acoustic guitar. In short, there are for all tastes and styles on rhythms quite rather light. With Prisms we enter the beautiful ballads portion of The Colours of Music. A portion that cants a little more towards New Age with beautiful percussions clicking with echo on fine chords which move as cat steps on a suave synth. It is beautiful, soft, and delicate and sounds very TD from the Miramar years. All that follows Free Fall – Any Colour Will Do inhales the lightness and innocence in a strong dyeing of sounds where samplings of all stripes each of the melodies, as the very soft and tribal The Sirens Secret Call, the very beautiful Travellers in Time, the poignant The Harmony of Colour which would find its place in Mike Oldfield‘s repertory the very Vangelis and Tangerine Dream (Legend) Memories of a Purple Plain and The Mystic.

   Claudio Merlinis The Colours of Music is an album filled with suave musicality where melodies prevail on rhythms molded from big explosive orchestrations. Its a disconcerting album because the Italian synthesist displays an array of tones as explosive as delicate on paces or melodies constantly buried under a pleiad of vocal samplings. Its an odd album which hides a New Age approach with superb melodies that made enormous winks of eye to the music Tangerine Dream, Art of Noise, Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis and even Mike Oldfield, from their more accessibility periods.

   2011. Sylvain Lupari / Guts of Darkness