donato dozzy: the loud silence

In April 2015, Donato Dozzy took a set of mouth harps to his parents' house in the Italian countryside and set about exploring the possibilities of that most basic of instruments. The mouth harp had been calling to Donato Dozzy ever since childhood, and he had begun to see in this peculiar, ancient sound the roots of the music he'd been making and playing in clubs. The Loud Silence is the result of those explorations, an accompanied deep-dive into childhood memory, social history, and the roots of psychedelia. Recorded indoors and outdoors; halfway up mountains and on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, the album is meditative but also powerful. Each track maintains an inviolable central pulse, while delicate, fluttering sounds hint at vast spaces waiting for the listener to connect with them. Field recordings hover below the resonating harps, adding to the mysterious atmosphere. Tracks like "The Loud Silence" and "Downhill to the Sea" are wrapped up in simple rhythms, their strict throb drawing the listener in. The organic physicality of the sound, made in concert with the body itself, generates a primal response in the listener; an undeniably visceral understanding; an empathetic resonance. The Loud Silence is Donato Dozzy's second solo album, and it sees him return to Further Records, with which released his first solo album, K, in 2010. The two albums share a sense of dynamic movement within a limited sphere. It's not minimal, exactly -- it's hard to describe such a rich sound as minimal or reduced in any way -- but it gets the most out of a small, well-chosen set of tools. As on his 2015 album Sintetizzatrice, a full-length collaboration with singer Anna Caragnano, the ability to make a single element the center of a musical world is enthralling. Anyone who has followed Donato Dozzy's work, whether the celebrated Voices from the Lake collaboration with Neel, the otherworldly mixes he's done for mnml ssgs and electronique.it, or, particularly, his 2013 album of Bee Mask remixes for the Spectrum Spools label, will see that The Loud Silence is a continuation of a lifelong fascination with sound and its potential to bring people, times, and places together. This album is the first in Further's series exploring the depth of one instrument, preceding a solo record from Nuel focused on the Ekdahl Polygamist synthesizer.