Amirani Records, the label founded and run by Milanese soprano saxophonist Gianni Mimmo, ends its eighteen-year run with three final releases. The last of the three, a recording of the Sestetto Internazionale, was reviewed here earlier; preceding it a duet for Mimmo and Finnish soprano and sopranino saxophonist Harri Sjöström, and a solo recording by Milanese cellist Walter Prati.
Mimmo and Sjöström are frequent collaborators, whether in the Sestetto Internazionale or as duet partners, and on Wells, their well-practiced chemistry shows. Throughout the album they spontaneously create themes and variations that they pass back and forth, telepathically complete each other’s phrases, and braid their lines together into knots of complex counterpoint. The two voices are clearly separated in the recording which makes each player – Mimmo, with a round, warm sound, and Sjöström, with a sharper attack and more angular approach to phrasing – easily identifiable.
Cellist Walter Prati’s solo work Lullabies and Stories is a collection of relatively short pieces for cello with and without electronics. The thirteen pieces – five “lullabies” and eight “stories” – are diverse in sound and structure, but are held together by a minor-shaded theme which is introduced on the opening track and which recurs, with variations, at different points on the album. Prati’s playing encompasses a broad range of cello techniques from straight-ahead classical to extended bowings and fingerings. He supplements the cello’s natural voice with electronics on a number of pieces, using looping, sound manipulation, and heavy reverb to enhance and multiply the effects produced by bow and fingers alone. No matter what techniques or electronic effects Prati puts to use, the music maintains an emotional warmth over the course of the entire album.
https://www.amiranirecords.com
Daniel Barbiero
Avant Music News 