Massimo Salari (NonSoloProg) — Jan 19, 2016
Contextualizes the transition from Aisthanomai, the Demetrio Stratos lineage, and the specific CD split. "...A sumptuous work where research, anguish, and soul meet in a result far from the taken-for-granted nature of contemporary products. Music and sounds for thinking, for colliding nerves..."
RDM Records
1/19/20163 min read
"After eight years since Aisthànomai, Il Dramma della Coscienza, Romina Daniele returns to record—an experimental artist in the vocal realm as well as a painter, poet, and photographer. She returns charged with experience, accumulated during numerous live dates carved out over time, and with a vein of Blues that you do not expect.
The singer has registered her capabilities, succeeding in this sumptuous triple CD in demonstrating that vocal experimentation can also marry music in a melodic sense. A bit like what happened to Area with Demetrio Stratos, when with 'Gli Dei Se Ne Vanno, Gli Arrabbiati Restano' they were succeeding in fusing vocal experimentation with the song formula—only a premature death for Demetrio could deprive us of who knows what further developments. But I do not want to banally compare Daniele to this context, because the artist nonetheless succeeds in making her vocal gifts an instrument with a well-defined personality, guided by her own experience.
Spannung is accompanied by an exhaustive and substantial booklet containing elucidating phrases regarding the emotional path of the listening experience. In it, moreover, one can also enjoy the photos that highlight the beautiful and sensual face of the singer, as well as the special aura that surrounds the expression of her face and body. Music and essence corporeal; research and dedication to the Blues, as well as to the classics—the whole under a highly curated guise. One deduces also another detail: the red color that surrounds every image and that gives vigor to her entire personality.
Spannung contains songs recorded from 2009 to 2015 and begins with 'Dasein I.I'; this we will find again in all three discs, like a guiding thread that differs solely by the title in ascending numerical order (Dasein I.II, Dasein I.III etc.). Electronics and voice, vibrato and acute, an intro that leaves one to presage a sound path that is corporeal and researched. The interpretation of 'Summertime,' revisited and corrected by the impetuous bulk of the vocal usage over an electronic base that is once again ancestral, strikes the listener. The warm soul of 'Sycamore Trees' written by Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch finds a modern freshness in this new guise, accompanied by overdubbed vocal tracks that grant listening depth. 'Outside Me' is the new version of the song written by the artist herself, 'All’Esterno Di Me,' more rich and emphatic. The more researched and introverted side of vocal and vocalic essence, we continue to find in the subsequent iterations of 'Dasein.' Often the music transmits anguish and succeeds in making itself one with the sounds, but also through interpretations close to the 'Teatro della Voce' [Theater of the Voice].
Blues follows, warming the heart through the classic 'Blue Spirit Blues' of 1930. One of the most interesting moments of the disc, according to the taste of this writer, is the poem 'Assenza (O Soglia Del Mio Dolore),' where the singer in this case becomes narrative; she is accompanied by Emanuele Cutrona on bass. Reading the booklet of the CD during listening, one often encounters the gaze of Romina, intense and profound like her music.
The second CD opens with a traditional 'Oh Rosie,' recorded in 2011. Folk peeks into the background of the artist, a demonstration of visual breadth and experience acquired over time. Beautiful also the cover of Frank Sinatra's 'I Am A Fool To Want You (Take II)' where the sound is not dragged toward the mawkish, but searches instead to grant it intensity and impetus, almost seeking to profane it, dusting it off and screaming it. Another classic of the Blues is 'Backwaters Blues' by Bessie Smith; Romina Daniele makes us understand how important the foundations of modern music are. Here on guitar is Luca De Maio, while on bass is Luca Caiazza. Another traditional piece revisited and overturned is 'I Went To That Place Alone,' only to return to the Blues with 'Timber' by Odetta Holmes. There is also a piece with the band, including drums, that of Manuel Taranto, and it is entitled 'I Put A Spell On You,' intense, heartfelt, and scratching. The second dedication to the Voice-Frank is entitled 'I Am A Fool To Want You (Take I),' overturned like a glove, tottering, a window for a wah-wah vocal brought to the limit between the provocative, the yawn, and the sneer.
The third CD is composed of two tracks, 'La Natura Assente (III),' a lugubrious gymnasium of vibrated and researched sounds, and the long suite 'Dasein III,' in its turn an obscure presence of spectral vibrations. After so many years, Romina Daniele cannot leave listeners indifferent; here, then, is a sumptuous work where research, anguish, and soul meet in a result far from the taken-for-granted nature of contemporary products. Music and sounds for thinking, for colliding nerves, for relaxing, for terrifying oneself, for being amazed, for learning, for warming oneself, for freezing oneself, for..."
Massimo Salari with NonSoloProgRock
