Stefano Lentini
Fury

STEFANO LENTINI - Fury

(Coloora Records)

Film and TV score composer (he has worked with the iconic Korean director Wong Kar-Wai in The Grandmaster, as well as having written the soundtrack for La porta rossa and the mega TV blockbuster RAI Braccialetti rossi), Stefano Lentini ventures into creating an album that, right from the title, makes things clear. While in soundtracks the artist had to, necessarily, follow the mood of the films and TV series, here he unleashes his own mood. And it's immediately FURY. An album that, although clearly conceived with “classical” arrangements, develops with a wholly rock soul and attitude, at times heavy, other times even prog. In England, where the album was released (as in the States), it was labeled “psychedelic classical,” invoking Pink Floyd. Without bringing up the Floyd, we would say Lentini clearly, given his track record, knows how to work with notes masterfully. The norms of classical are overturned with sounds that are at times ambient, at times almost chill out. Some might object… Chill out and classical (see Moby, or the myriad Café del Mar compilations) have been going hand in hand for a while. But if there was the sun of Ibiza and the pills of “induced joy” there, here there’s nothing to laugh at (see the iconic smile often printed on MDMA pills). Very often everything sounds menacing. Listen to the title track, a furious and frenetic progression of strings, frenzied saxophones, to understand how Lentini's alternative classic is something new, which has nothing to do with the super cool scene of Berlin or labels like Erased Records. A standalone journey, bold and uncompromising.