Fonderia
re>>enter

Here's a name that so far hasn't started circulating significantly in the music-biz as it deserves: Fonderia, a magical Roman group that released its second album in 2006, after an already good debut.

The first references that come to mind to describe their music are Weather Report and Perigeo, so you will understand that we are talking about jazz, prog, rock, fusion, etno etc. It's instrumental music only, where the focus is on the feeling, the artistic urgency, and certainly not the mere display of technique.

The album consists of 10 tracks lasting from 4 to 10 minutes, all based on electric and acoustic guitar, piano, keyboards, synth, hammond, moog, trumpet, and rhythm section, giving the spotlight to all five members of the band, each skilled in creating always surprising sounds and textures. Yes, because the beauty of this album is the variety between the pieces and within the pieces themselves, where surprises will not be missing with each listen, and when a track seems to be following a certain path, be aware that a change in register and atmosphere will pleasantly catch you off guard.

In addition to a guest clarinet on two tracks (one of which also features a cello) and the sax on another, we have a super-guest from the quintessential Roman progressive band: Banco. I'm talking about Rodolfo Maltese, whose acoustic guitar enriches a track, but whose presence, above all, ennobles the work and the band in question, almost giving us a stamp of quality assurance on the project.

In the CD booklet there are many lightbulbs, and indeed it's precisely the light of genius that permeates the album, rich as it is with immediately captivating melodies combined with more intricate passages, all always accessible and listenable even by someone unfamiliar with the genre, thanks to these guys' sense of composition, who deserve credit for having created something unique, a mix of dreamy and light, melancholic atmospheres (I think of "Quand'ero piccolo", a wonderful 4-minute piece, simple, initially played on a catchy piano loop and finally on an applause-worthy, heartfelt, and melodic guitar solo) and parts that are now funky, now jazz, now ethnic. 

If I have to choose a track that exemplifies all of this, I say "Grandi novità": atmospheric intro with measured, slow, whispering piano, airy keyboards in the background, then the trumpet starts, drawing a long immediately graspable melody, always followed by a never bland bass... and by the middle of the piece, everything changes, the rhythm accelerates, Maltese's sunny guitar comes in, the piano draws another beautiful melody, now faster, until fading into strange synth effects.

Be aware, in any case, that there are no drops, fillers, every piece has a landscape to offer you, an emotion to communicate to you, a memory to suggest to you, because this is free music, free from every shackle, "imaginative" (to quote a term often used by Di Cioccio, with which he also named his label, and if Fonderia reminds you of Forneria, well, at least in attitude, the comparison holds). Each member steps in when they believe, dialogues with the others, performs alone, but always maintaining a coherence and a logical thread of the song that mitigate those irrational and uncontrolled escapes typical of pure progressive. No, here to reign is wisdom, peace, harmony, this is musical art. As mentioned, there are indeed accelerations, variations, musical scenarios that change suddenly, but all always with composure, a sense of measure, and a class that makes these gentlemen authentic philosophers of music.

A key concept to describe their music, perhaps, is "controlled freedom", in the sense of creativity and improvisation always shaped and contained by a sense for melody and thoughtfulness.

I hope I have been a humble servant of their cause, they deserve it: it's when I hear albums like this that I remember what music is and its visionary and exploratory power of memories, sensations, instincts, suggestions.

And in the meantime, I'm listening again to "Quand'ero piccolo": how delicate, how beautiful it is....