venerdì 10 luglio 2015

Review of "Passaggio su Piccoli Ponti" by Gianluca Vanità, selfmade cd, 2015


I confess that I feared reading the title of this cd, the first self-produced record release by Gianluca Vanità: the title brought me back dark memories of new age sugary sounds , ghosts I defeated some times ago through exorcisms based on doom metal.
But fortunately this did not happen. Gianluca Vanità is an italian classical guitarist, with a solid cultural education that shines through in every note of this personal record. I say personal because normally it is easy to come across, from who comes out of a conservatory, in a debut album substantially based on a.. "classic" repertoire..  Recuerdos de la Alhambra, Lagrima, etc. Nothing bad mind you, but it is likely to generate a series of records very consistent with each other chasing the same repertoire and the same music. Vanità instead has chosen a very different path, releasing 16 tracks all composed, designed, made and played by himself , a solution more in line with the proposals coming instead by who wields an acoustic guitar or playing fingerstyle.
The result is a work that draws with both hands in classic tradition, a genre  normally averse to this type of operation, you could even have some fun seeking all the hidden "licks" taken from the classical guitar literature. The risk, of course, is to lapse into banality quotations, but what Vanità did seems to me having all the characteristics of a particular choice rather than a limit: Vanità plays very good  the songs are pleasant and his technique is excellent. Of course, this is not contemporary music, we're not talking about a hard structures or particularly innovative solutions, but melodies are beautiful, pleasant and well-structured. It could be the beginning of a process that need further investigations before reaching full maturity ... I have no hurry, I'll wait with pleasure all the possible developments.

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