* PREORDER * BONO/BURATTINI - Ora Sono Un Lago LP

* PREORDER * expected to arrive late March

Like the emerald merkiness emerging from the cover photograph, Bono / Burattini’s new album ‘Ora Sono Un Lago’ transcends elements, a tenacious and brooding collection of work that testifies the duo’s growth and ghostly ability to immerse kosmische landscapes, stripped electronica and oscillatory psychedelia and emerge with songs meticulously constructed, dense and unforgiving, full of richly assembled textures and echoed out other-worldly choirs. Some might call it confessional mysticism.

The palette is wide, from the standout title-track, where scintillating complex sequences leave space to a a spellbinding synth, to the menacing ‘Prove d’esistenza/Il gesto’ lead by it’s funked-out robocop drums or its evil twin ‘Acrobata’, all hovering choppers and Carpenter existentialism. Pastoral minimalism and spiritual elegance take over on ‘Fragili danze’, a mesmerizing dance that mixes the emotional engagement found in Laurie Spiegel’s compositions and that constant search for human fabric. This is an element that is widely explored on the masterful album closing sequence of ‘Oltre le palpebre’ and ‘Lonely blue star’ where acoustic instrumentation pinpoints Bono / Burattini’s silky stratifications creating a sense of three-dimensional space and gentle propulsion. A mysterious mix that touches on the obscure rumblings of early UK post-rock greats Bark Psychosis/Disco Inferno while keeping a hand deep in the pockets of Italian archival folklore and 70s tradition. Songs like ‘Come un riflesso’ are a good reminder that the duo’s rhythmical complexion definitely takes nods from Liebezeit’s playbook but are set on the duo’s own pace, a lone voyager on a hallucinatory trip.