why we love this

The collage of sounds, and the way in which they create and release tension over time, creates a storyline and visual landscape that feels as if the listener is immersed in a video game’s magical world. Cesare Lopopolo and Anna Vezzosi of Rosso Polare build on the everyday sonic textures of the (in)animate and give rise to the feeling of “an otherwise”—a new approach to sounds dwelling amongst each other and blurring the boundaries of form.

about the record

Bocca D'ombra is influenced by Timothy Morton's Dark Ecology, a thinker who views the ongoing exchange between the human and natural world as a dialogue, with both influencing each other in reverberating loops. This looping is also reflected in their compositions, where improvisations with traditional instruments like electric and acoustic guitars, monophonic synths, horns, or flutes blend with natural noise-making tools like branches, rocks, or nuts, resulting in lugubrious and often dissonant textures. Bocca D’ombra is built upon a series of whispers, breaths, panting, and rustling, creating an intimate atmosphere that sometimes borders on claustrophobia, ingeniously juxtaposed with sounds that evoke spaciousness—fireworks crackling, crows echoing, church bells reverberating, and indistinct cries from a children's playground. The result is a heady and intoxicating mix that sublimates chaos into sparkling compositions of contemporary animism.