Vari Chromo

Since he first emerged back in 2009 with his debut album ‘Black Ivy’ Italian electronic producer Lorenzo Montanà has been extremely prolific, with his work including no less than five collaborative albums alongside ambient pioneer Pete Namlook before the latter’s untimely passing in 2012. On the heels of last year’s ‘Leema Hactus’ collection, this latest album ‘Vari Chromo’ offers up the final chapter in a trilogy of releases on Psychonavigation. While shades of ambient trail around much of this collection though (most notably on expansive closing track ‘Phase Constant Oscillation’), for the most part the ten tracks collected here sit closer to downbeat IDM with a cinematic bent, as sparse slow rhythms wander against glittery electronics and occasional touches of classical piano. ‘Siberia’ certainly opens proceedings on a filmic note as gently brooding piano chords unfurl against a backdrop of subtle clicking rhythms and bright synths slowly bend out of the woodwork, the track living up to its glacial title as it builds to a swelling emotive crescendo. ‘Spoot’ meanwhile offers up an eerie downbeat wander through clicking hip hop-centred beats and ominously swirling ambience that sees distant vocal shrieks bleeding through dense layers of glittering synths, as a midsection coloured with what sounds like Middle Eastern instrumentation adds to the underlying sense of filmic menace. Elsewhere though, ‘Hy-Brasil’ sees some brighter melodic shades creeping back towards the forefront as glassy colourful synth tones play against a treacherously shuffling backbone of clicking electro rhythms, in a moment that definitely highights Montana’s more optimistically playful side. While a lot of this is extremely familiar terrain by now, ‘Vari Chromo’ sees Montana offering up a consistently engaging collection that pretty much doesn’t put a foot wrong. By Chris Downton (cyclicdefrost.com)