Satelliti
Im Magen des Kosmos

Creating an album with few and selected instruments these days is not a common feat. Stuffing is always easier: it confuses the taste and pleases almost everyone. Wanting to be more refined, however, requires a good balance of ingredients to avoid overloading the dish, especially if the dish in question is intended for an intergalactic snack.

"Im Magen des Kosmos" is the first album of the South Tyrolean duo Satelliti. Sober, essential, it is an atypical album for 2011: drum'n'synth in the era of drum'n'bass, keyboards used as guitars, distant drums and acoustic drums that blend discreetly with crawling or screaming electronic digressions. 

The references should be sought back in time, in the most rarefied Kosmische Musik (early Amon Duul, Cluster, Harmonia, Guru Guru) or - just to identify a relatively recent affinity - in the stripped-down Orb of U.F.Orb.

In the two introductory explorations, "Primo movimento" and "Secondo movimento", titled in Italian as befits the sections of a serious classical music work, the drums take center stage on clean (track 1) or distorted (track 2) jazz digressions.

"In stillste ruh" introduces a couple of new elements at the beginning and end: introduced by a transverse flute, it ends with a poignant poem in German.

The title track arrives mid-album: a hypnotic electronic pulse replaces the percussion and leads straight into the meanders of existence, through the bowels of the universe.

"Coffee in Guangzhou" promises a speech in Chinese that seems to appear only at the beginning of the next track.

"Dispersion (Thinking of you)" is a long improvisation that changes mood several times and introduces the concluding "Mom", the only track with a recognizable melody repeated enough times to stick in your head. With that delicate Fender Rhodes riff, it would only need a few strings to touch down and become a classic by Air.

"Im Magen des Kosmos" is an experimental album that consistently remains between the relaxing and the unsettling, leading towards infinite spaces by digging within.

Bizarre perhaps, but far from indigestible.