Rosso Polare is a Milan-based experimental duo comprised of the Italian artist/musicians Cesare Lopopolo and Anna Vezzosi. The pair is currently readying a very limited edition cassette release with hand-numbered art included in the object’s red ziplock packaging. The eleven-track offering is entitled Lettere Animali, and it is due out on July 7th via the Russian label Klammklang.
Regarding Lopopolo and Vezzosi, we are told that one member is from the “city” and the other is from the “countryside.” This dichotomy is central to the project, as these two polarities form assemblage points for the pair to move between. Musically, Rosso Polare employs field recordings, free-form musical expression, as well as more folk-related melodic idioms. Moving between an instinctual form of improvisation and a more structured musicality can be seen, then, as traveling between the “city” and “countryside.”
Like the two hemispheres of the brain, the cities left-sided rational perspective, and the countrysides’ more picture-based instinctual approach, the ability to move between these polarities is what is at stake here for the two artists. Lettere Animali is an homage to the animal’s ability for that pure instinctual action that comes before the constructs of the mind. Seeking a similarly unencumbered playing-style, Lopopolo and Vezzosi are like shape-shifters as their freed sound unleashes animal-like cries and grunts or raw forms of direct expression as on the album’s appropriately titled opening track “No. 1.”
But, as every good shape-shifter knows, the key to the ability lies in fluidly moving between the assemblage points at will. And so, Rosso Polare’s music finds the pair sliding from their free-form expression into more pastoral, melodic passages of approach with ease, as on the other Lettere Animali offering currently available for streaming, “No. 9.” Field recordings combine with rustic sounding strings, as off-kilter tunings mingle with the sounds of birds chirping and air rustling to add a dream-like dimension to this track.
For those seeking to take the trip between the countryside and the city, Rosso Polare’s Lettere Animali offers unlimited seating via digital download; but for those seeking a more magickal vehicle, the hand-numbered cassette version has very limited room available.
