Apegenine Recordings

|Press| go back to release

01 "Emanuele Errante is a name that will likely be unfamiliar to most if not all of you, but like the Hannu album 'Worms in my Piano' from a couple of months back, his album has popped up out of nowhere and captured our hearts. We don't need to reiterate just how much we adore drifting music with a leaning toward modern composition, and 'Migrations' truly ticks all the right boxes for us. Taking cues from Deaf Center's stunning 'Pale Ravine' and Marsen Jules' 'Herbstlaub', Errante extracts subtle and devastatingly beautiful textures from harps, strings, guitars, pianos and synthesizer without ever taking a misstep. Take the opening track for instance; 'Rugiada' sets the pace for the entire album with its tantalising blend of delicate harp strums draped in an otherworldly ambience. This parallel land of curled smoke, the trace of acoustic instrumentation and the embrace of dense harmony is what propels the album ever forward and for forty minutes Errante has us totally entranced in his velveteen, dense world. There is a poetry, a grace and a lightness of touch to his compositions, and although there is, like Deaf Center and Marsen Jules, a leaning towards electronic production methods 'Migrations' is a far cry from the electronic tomfoolery we were threatened with five years ago. This album is indicative of a great change in the way electronic music is being made, a change which allows producers to use the technology now available without necessarily getting caught up and eventually shackled by it. Indeed Errante seems to have just as much love for Steve Reich and Arvo Part as for more contemporary producers, and with tracks such as 'Wheels' there is a sense that he has had a musical grounding which far outstrips many of his more electronically minded peers. As you've probably guessed we've been totally won over by this debut, it's one of those albums I can imagine going back to again and again, an engrossing record which will supply you with an untapped wealth of warmth and sonic innovation. Fans of Marsen Jules, Arvo Part or Deaf Center should investigate immediately."

- Boomkat

02 Emanuele Errante's latest work, Migrations, opens with the layered plucking of a pastoral, windswept harp, and is soon joined by the deep bass thrumming of the tide bashing against the rocks below. The artist and his piece, “Rugiada,” must be careful with the mood here, as a misplaced step could launch the listener over the moor like a cast-off Victorian lover. Instead, Errante entices us into an unquestioning, warm sense of tranquility. We are to admire the azure sky and softly rolling clouds above, and to breathe in the sea-salted air deeply.The album, the first in Apegenine's Chapitre (a collection of albums dedicated to ambient music) series, returns to this idea of mood repeatedly, albeit in progressively darker tones. Nervous piano introduces “Nubes,” and builds into a tense, unresolved death chamber figure. “Wheels” follows with a barely-oscillating pad and one of the few moments of structured rhythm on the album before growing into a claustrophobic crowd scene featuring a herd of slow-motion strings running blindly down an alleyway. It is on this track that Errante fills his canvas, pushing touches of piano and rhythmic accents above the churn. “Sogno” is the mournful aftermath, where, between soft sobbing, the spaces between notes are again allowed room to breath as the dead are pulled back to darkened doorsteps.Calabria” rises from these ashes like a resolute anti-hero born of tragedy. This is the scene where we are again at our opening panorama of the cliff overlooking the ocean, and the rumbling of the surf below is now joined with far-off thunder. A streak of sunlight breaks through the cloud cover, bathing the horizon in fiery oranges and reds behind a hunched, silhouetted figure. “Migrations” is a stronger, but more gossamer, thread of light beckoning past the bluff's final step, teasing with distant voices shimmering just beyond reach. “Terra” is the culmination of the event foreshadowed in the opener, “Rugiada”, and occurs just after the plunge, where the undertow dashes numb bones against smooth, muted rocks. The sky, sun and angels mix through an opaque sea before the album exhales its final breath.Waltzing Chiara” serves as the denouement, and provides the soundtrack to a ghostly couple's moonlight glide through the open fields. The loping rhythm is carefree and simple, but is shrouded with an ominous sense that hovers just barely within the periphery, watching us as we watch the supernatural lovers dance. We are again reminded of our omniscience, of our detachment from the story by its reflection on us as spectator. It is here that Errante establishes himself as a storyteller worth paying attention to. Moving beyond the cinematic and into the realm of exposition, he becomes almost a laissez-faire auteur who provides a fully-developed synesthetic world that needs only the listener to give it life. After a handful of releases under both his own name and as Mais for the Maetrixsolution netlabel, Errante is now in a position to join the ranks of his spiritual brothers on the Type label as leading producers of modern mood composition. It would be easy to call these works by the genre name of Ambient; with Migrations, Errante has done the difficult job of creating art.

- The Silent Ballet

03 "Like a bolt out of the blue comes this album that I really know nothing about at all... and quite simply, it's stunning from beginning to end. From the opening moments of processed harp sounds you know this is going to be beautiful, but it just never stops being gorgeous for one single minute. In fact, if pushed, I'd have to describe it as a sort of hybrid of Marsen Jules, Wolfgang Voigt (albeit minus the rhythms) and Kompakt's Andrew Thomas. Layers of manipulated sound sources create incredibly hypnotic, wonderfully deep arrangements that are spare, yet full sounding. Seriously, I'm a bit floored by this and I've been listening to it on and off all day... simply brilliant. Don't miss out"

- Smallfish

04 "Migrations, Emanuele Errante's debut album, is a perfect choice to inaugurate Apegenine's Chapitre, a series dedicated to ambient music, field recordings, and modern composition. Migrations' eight electro-acoustic settings are soothing, multi-layered fields of loops that sit naturally alongside the similarly pretty recordings of Marsen Jules, Gas, and Kompakt's Pop Ambient installments. Errante's wide-ranging instrumental palette adds contrast with the harp plucks and strums that dominate “Rugiada” followed by the strings and piano of “Nubes.” “Calabria,” with its surging waves, Gas-styled strings, and repeating piano ping, is as moodily atmospheric as the fog-drenched moors of Wuthering Heights, while “Wheels” is equally motorik and hazy, as its layers blur into a repeating mass that vaguely resembles Reich's Music For Eighteen Musicians. The words contemplative, ruminative, and serene come to mind while listening to this accomplished collection of lulling ambiance. ."

- Textura

05 "I think that the main appeal of drone music is its accordance to an idealized human life, which also flows in endless circles and loops, is rich in layers and emotion and ceases in density only to be lifted anew again. Real life does have its erruptions and harsh breaks and disruptions, but in an ideal life we dream of a steady flow, of an everlasting moment of bliss and happiness (whatever that might be to us individually). Like the endless breaking of waves at a beach and the ocean after all is where all life on this planet comes from. Drones mirror this ideal situation and turn it into a motionless yet constantly moving impression by the means of musical art. Sometimes they add to the ideal by hyperbolizing and at other times they concentrate it to its basic core by simplification but mostly they try to freeze an impression in time, which doesn’t mean that the tracks ought to be minimal – the musical language seems to command movement and transitions to be able to denominate constancy or immobility. Like Greg Headly who took over the movement of the planets to explore life's mysteries in an alike manner. The chapitre series is a new sideway of apegenine records, which will concentrate on drones, ambient and field recordings, as an addition to their hitherto more electronica / IDM oriented schedule (which gave us some highlights with David Kristian and Surrashu) and this CD by Emanuele Errante is a great start. Somewhere between modern composition and dense ambient drones he presents eight multilayered tracks that celebrate the fine point between immobility of sounds and large movements without ever being minimal. Quite contrary, these songs are rich and lush in their arrangements, overflowing with spheres, pads and manipulated instruments, but also with harps and pianos. Errante follows the pulse of the human body, a relaxed breathing rhythm mostly, and instead of working from a beginning to an end seems to layer different aspects of the music onto each other. Thereby the music sounds static and dynamic at the same time. On closer inspection, ie. after having dozed soundly to the soundtrack of „migrations“ (don’t worry, it is one of my rules to listen to records I am about to review for four or five times on different occassions and with different levels of concentration to form an opinion about them) I feel that the appeal of this CD also has a lot to do with the human warmth the music spreads. These sounds are warm, their pulse is even and likeable, the arrangements are lush and organic. Music like this is open to a manifold bouquet of connotations, associations and dreams. He usually stays away from the more abstract sounds, though he confronts the sound of waves crashing on the beach with a single high note for quite some time at the beginning of „calabria“ before the strings set in. „migrations“ is a great soundtrack for endless travels in the listeners mind, as the title already implies. And what is more exciting and relaxing at the same time than travelling in your mind? That in itself is a form of art. For quite some time now I have had the feeling that the pure technoid urban cyber nomad, which only ever has existed as an image, has lost a lot of his appeal. Two or three years ago music that sounded as if it was made long after midnight on a laptop on some busy airport was all the rage. Nowadays this kind of laptop musician would rather be pitied for his disbalanced and unhealthy lifestyle. Emanuele Errante’s music sounds more like hours of slow walks along the beach on stormy afternoons. But also forrests, mountains, rivers or the jungle, or rather the feeling of their endless lifecycle, which changes all the time but stays the same it has ever been."

- Cracked reviews

06 "Migrations is the debut album from newfound artist Emanuele Errante. ‘Migrations’ is an eight track album of interesting, intelligent mature chilled tunes, all of which are well suited to intimate environment such as a candlelight dinner, relaxing in the backyard on a deck chair, or even taking much needed time out in the chill tent at a festival. One thing this music is, though, is original. You will need to listen to this CD to know what I mean. It is mood music that can almost control your emotions, taking you to another place. It sounds corny I know, but believe me, it is surprisingly powerful sounds.‘Rugiada’ opens the CD and places the listener into a sense of deep foreboding, yet it also applies a sense of rolling serenity. String chords slide along the majesty of this track before moving into ‘Nubes’, track two. The deep vibe carries through, accompanied by more subtle keyboard, and all you need to do is close your eyes and be taken away before moving into hypnosis on the third tune, ‘Wheels’. The rest of the album takes this approach, soaring the listener through an empathic aural experience of all manner of emotions. The middle of the CD moves more into a happier style of chill. ‘Migrations’, coming in at track six, is quite an aptly named song, as one could almost feel their subconscious doing just that. We are then taken full circle, back to a foreboding feel on the second to last track, before concluding on an extremely uplifting and passionate climax, ‘Waltzing Chiara’, which is by far the masterpiece of the CD.What stands out is the deep, passionate, resonating backings that are the core of Emanuele Errante’s work. It is emotive, calming and extremely creative. On first listen some may say it is just more chilled music, but if you listen that bit closer you will be able to piece together the true genius behind it. If you like it chilled out, different or original, ‘Migrations’ will more than suit your taste. Even if this is not your preferred genre, treat your ears to this and let the music influence you"

- In the mix

07 "On the small Canadian label Apegenine Recordings we get one Emanuele Errante, of whom I never heard. This is the first release in the Chapitre series which will deal with electronic ambient music. As such Errante succeeds well. His music seems to me made of guitars and synthesizers, of which he creates bigger and smaller loops, which is fed through Ableton Live (I think I recognized some of effects in that program) and each of the eight pieces is a nice flow. Not too deep, certainly not very dark but also not too bright. Errante makes easy music, and perhaps the easy way. Easy listening music, that occasionally goes into the direction of New Age music, but it never crosses the line. Errante creates wonderful, beautiful risk free ambient music that stands firmly in the tradition of Brian Eno and everything that has come our way in the field of ambient music since then. (FdW)."

- Vital