[review]
Alessandro Quarta‘s mediterranean, sensual roots can clearly be heard in his latest album Charlot, inspired and dedicated to one of his idols, Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin.
Opening with the jazzy flavours of Hymn To Love, only song on the album featuring vocals, from Sensuality on the listener is instantly taken to a world of warm mediterranean colours and irresistible scents, like in a movie where you expect to see Sofia Loren or Monica Bellucci walking along the streets of an old Naples that doesn’t exist anymore.
Few artists have Quarta’s ability to catapult you into a succession of images in a way that is so vivid.
The cradling strings of River will embrace you, while in Sensitivity Quarta makes his violin sing sinuously. The whole album offers different music styles and yet it is compact and coherent, like a film that has different scenes with different paces but is built on the same theme. Every note here oozes sensuality, elegance and balance. Nothing is too high nor too low, all is perfectly aligned with the music that comes from a passionate heart, while, especially in the jazzy Dinner with you in Paris, there is a perfect display of music mastery.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH ALESSANDRO QUARTA HERE >
Gocce (Drops) is maybe the most interesting piece of the whole work. For a moment sensuality is forgotten to give room to what is probably the real homage to Chaplin (in addition to the title track): The melancholy of its notes taking us back to the golden years, the violin almost crying in memory of a past that no longer is, but also an ending that revives hope when the violin that is played almost like an electric guitar.
The last track, Charlot, is the musical equivalent of a Charlie Chaplin movie. This is one of those songs that give you goosebumps from the first note through to the very last.
The magnificence of Alessandro Quarta’s music is compelling and mesmerising, his talent and skills one of the best things Italy has given the world in a long, long time.
Listen to Charlot:
