Rohmer
Rohmer

It should be emphasized: Rohmer is not just one of the many projects born from the mind of Fabio Zuffanti, as one might be tempted to believe. It is simply the legacy, what remains and is reborn from the ashes of the glorious name of Finisterre after the departure of Stefano Marelli, the historic guitarist and singer of the Genoese band. It's an entity, a group formed by the union of Zuffanti with Boris Valle and Agostino Macor in the wake of Finisterre’s dissolution, even though they still had something to say musically and artistically. That something finally arrived with the name Rohmer, and it found a home with the legendary Vinyl Magic label distributed by BTF Italy and revived by Milanese producer Matthias Scheller.

From a rhythmic viewpoint, the Rohmer also rely on the great friend from Abruzzo, Mau Di Tollo, who settled in Genoa a few years ago and has been involved in almost all of Zuffanti’s projects since the success of La Maschera di Cera. A plethora of skilled guests complete the executive team of this new ensemble. There are three voices between spoken word and speech, Claudio Castellini, Angelo Pellino, and Andrea Celeste. On the transverse flute and bass flute is Marco Moro, on the trumpet Michele Bernabei, on the bass clarinet and soprano sax Edmondo Romano (a collaborator with Finisterre, Höstsonaten, Tony Esposito, and Vittorio De Scalzi), on the viola Osvaldo Loi, and on the electric guitar Sergio Antonazzo. Therefore, a small orchestra.

Rohmer is a group that embraces a strong personal influence through a passion for cinema and film music, making it suitable for the imaginary virtual soundtracks. It is no coincidence that the band's name is a tribute to the French filmmaker and author Eric Rohmer. Every track on the album seems poised to form small raindrops sliding down the windows of a gray autumn sunset, thanks to the twilight nature of the more intimate Zuffanti, which can also be heard on his first solo work, the EP “Pioggia e Luce” (Marsiglia Records, 2007). It is “Angolo 1” that opens the work, with Valle's melancholic piano, bluesy flute, evocative, gray, city atmosphere enshrouded in snow and muffled dawn sounds, a little gem among gems. Here, Di Tollo knows how to be delicate, caressing, dreamy, contrasting with the powerful and precise drumming shown in La Maschera di Cera. Antonazzo's final guitar solo frames the track and elevates it to one of the greatest instrumental masterpieces of this (in every possible sense) sad end of the first decade of the 21st century.

“Ecran Magique” and “Lhz”, suspended in the imaginary void of a piano circle, distant voices in the fog, Zuffanti's full-bodied bass pursuing a synth loop and a subdued sax. Valle and Macor's musical thoughts wander in the darkness of a movie theater projecting an early 20th-century auteur film. Vibrant sensations on the skin, the slow epidermal sliding of night neon. This is Rohmer and it’s an excellent calling card. The introspective and prospective Zuffanti peeks through in “V. (Moda Reale)” in which a poem by John Keats, one of the main exponents of English Romanticism alongside Shelley and Byron, is recited. Jazzy suggestions are veiled, but not too much, by ethereal sound canvases slowly uncovered in “Wittgenstein Mon Amour” which flows with graceful piano lines into “Cifra 3”, a very brief creation by Macor enriched with glockenspiel and sax.

Closing are “Angolo Due” and “Metodiche di Salvezza”. An ideal continuation of the opener, the first, and inner thoughts of an iridescent and fluid sax accompanied by piano for the second, they are united by the cicada hum of a still warm summer turning towards the soft colors, yellow-orange of autumn, leaves fallen on the ground of a laconic and dragged existence. The album is ultimately refined by the research and experimentation of “Elimini-enne”, on the borderline of noise and dissonance but with a minimal and intimate thread that extends indefinitely along the over twenty-two minutes of the track.

Another experience beyond the common human registers this Rohmer by Zuffanti-Valle-Macor-Di Tollo, which deviates from classic progressive but is progressive as it includes experimentation, post-rock inspiration, and journeys into the synesthesias of the unconscious. “Rohmer” is another bullseye by that group of Genoese musicians revolving around Fabio Zuffanti. Evoking the highest poetry of auteur cinema, Rohmer could be the solution for a director or screenwriter in search of a sonic accompaniment for their celluloid story.