Imaginary Soundtrack

The newest album by the prolific Copenhagen-based composer Paolo Russo is inspired by music for the films of his native Italy in the 1950s. He hopes his compositions prompt us to create images and narrative in the cinema of our heads as we listen. It's the film, surely, rather than the soundtrack that's imaginary... but no matter. Russo plays the bandoneón and is joined by Roberto Torto on recorders, the double bass of Tommy Andersson and David Hildebrandt playing the vibraphone. An unusual combination of musical textures: high piping, low thrum, reedy wheeze, ethereal reverberation. These create atmospheres effectively, without always all playing together. In ‘Madrugada’ the vibraphone evokes dawn (in the rain, to my ears); ‘La Foresta dei Giganti’ is a double bass solo. What's giant? The trees? Or are there huge creatures moving through them? It's up to you.

As well as landscape and atmosphere, place and time, films depend on character and story. Emphatic bandoneón chords and jazzy tippy-toe vibraphone notes conjure ‘The Elegant Jester’, anxious to amuse but, as with most clowns, somehow sad. There is ‘Den Gamle Kilde’ (The Ancient Well) and ‘La Fanciulla Dagli Occhi Sognanti’ (The Girl with Dreamy Eyes). It is hard to string these together as a narrative to a single imagined film. Rather, Russo has created a series of sonic vignettes. The album's none the worse for that.