On his sixth album, Emanuele de Raymondi has stepped into dangerous territory. Working on the material of another artist – especially when uninvited – can quickly turn into kitsch, which often remains completely meaningless due to too much awe and gushing. Or it becomes catastrophic because the adaptation tries to be something completely opposite from the original, the anti-thesis, which is then pushed through despite all obstacles. Raymondi from Italy, who graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston and the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, has managed to create the third and much more seldom result: the transcending of the original. His primary source for the ten variations are tracks by the Turkish clarinetist Oguz Büyükberber, who himself is known for improvising between jazz, Turkish sounds and contemporary forms of music. Hence, it’s about the transcending of an already transcendent, wandering music. Admittedly, there are easier grounds to start from. Still, with the help of computer-manipulation, Raymondi achieves two things: At first, he takes over the inherent groove, the melancholy lightheartedness and joy for playing of the Turkish virtuoso. Secondly, he uses certain sound-elements to put them into a new context – and that context ranges from classical Clicks’n’Cuts (BV 01) and Ambient (BV 05) through chamber music (BV 02) and Minimal Classic à la Philip Glass (BV 06) over to a head-nodding breakbeat (BV 04) and a claustrophobic horror-film-soundtrack (BV 08). All in all, it’s a very respectful and surprisingly new interpretation of Büyükberber’s music.

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Emanuele De Raymondi
Buyukberber Variations

from 7.57€