Short Reviews [Dedalogica - 2008 - "Dedalogica"]

Here is the self-titled debut release by the Italian quartet DEDALOGICA whose instrumentation nominally embraces three saxophones, three flutes, some keyboards, a trumpet and a harp. One of the participants, however, is a DJ of a sort. He only deploys or rather manipulates electronic devices (drum programming, sampling, midi-sequencing, etc.) which form about two-fifths of the recording’s overall sound. Furthermore, the 16 tracks presented have all been recorded live in the studio, so all in all it didn’t come as a surprise that Dedalogica’s own description of their music – Ambient Avant-garde Jazz – in many ways corresponds to the real state of affairs. Why not completely? Personally I’d add “pseudo” as a prefix to the term’s second word-component, as the parts taken by the real instruments are either free-jazz or simply spontaneous in nature. In addition, there are some-to-many vocal extravaganzas on most of the pieces, and since the musicians do whatever comes to their mind while ‘delivering’ those, quite a few of the segments that contain them arouse associations with anarchy or pandemonium. In the end, only three of the tracks are compelling; all of those are largely instrumental and are either completely (Pregheremo) or for the most part free of electronic and related features. Contrariwise, the other three pieces, Le Catacombe dei Lillipuziani, La Notte and Pionieri Del Buio, are least of all to my liking. Following one another right in the middle of the CD, these are made up predominantly of synthetically electronic fabrics. Only if you like SADO, Savoldelli & Sharp, Copernicus and the like projects will you be pleased with Dedalogica, also.

VM=Vitaly Menshikov: October 6, 2009