Detailed Reviews [Lelio Padovani - 2008 - "Chasing the Muse"]

Prolusion. Lelio PADOVANI is an Italian musician and songwriter whose creative output embraces four solo albums to date. Besides the one that’s in the heading of this writing (2007, arrived without any supporting material), these are “The Big Picture” (2005), “A2A” (2003) and “Unknown Evolution” (2002).

Analysis. Not too much to say here. “Chasing the Muse” is a recording whose essence itself seems to rebel against any analytic approach to it, which is not because this is a one-man effort, nor is it even due to the specificity of instruments utilized. The point is that this is an uninspired and extremely plain (I’d even say elementary) creation in which its maker’s lack of ideas is striking on all levels – in composition and arrangement alike, and whose performance in particular leaves much to be desired, too. In the booklet Padovani doesn’t list the instruments and devices he plays and deploys on this particular CD, but anyway it’s clear to me these are still the same (one electric and one acoustic) guitars, drum machine and sample sequencer I got to hear for the first time on his previous release, compared to which, though, this one is an almost complete potboiler. The eight tracks presented are basically two-thematic at best, none revealing event a hint of a pace change, as the machine is not actually programmed and used the simplest possible way: just by choosing a certain rhythm, in all cases. By starting up both the aforesaid engines Lelio creates a backdrop for his playing or, if you will, for what he has then to cover by eliciting sounds from the only real instrument he can master, which he does this time quite inertly, as if unwillingly. It’s not the case now to talk of any guitar histrionics: the man for the most part fairly lazily runs his fingers over the strings, and while every piece finds him more than once returning to a previously paved path, none of the solos are memorable or melodically interesting either, those on Light & Shadow (a sort of rocker) and Rainy (a semi-acoustic piece) included. In all, the music on this CD can at best be labeled as pseudo-Fusion, and it was really a tedious affair to listen to it (sorry Lelio).

Conclusion. Unlike those by most of the other one-man acts I’ve heard, this project, while having a factory-made CD as its bearer, is a typically homemade recording that any amateurish musician can nowadays do with ease. Muzak is the word.

VM=Vitaly Menshikov: November 22, 2008
The Rating Room