This is a translation of a review from the music blog Don’t Pee on the Rug. After the translation is a link the original Dutch review.
“This is how ‘A Chorus of Storytellers’ should have sound”, is the first thought that comes to mind while playing ‘The Longed-For Season’. In all fairness, I find that last album by The Album Leaf quite disappointing. But foremost, Francesco Galano, the man behind When The Clouds, with his new EP on Drifting Falling just delivered a very good debut.
To return to previously mentioned band; there also are some similarities. Both make use of a Fender Rhodes piano, glockenspiel and both bands make atmospheric listening music. However (fortunately) there aren’t any vocals on “The Longed-For Season”. I do hear the glitchy post-rock of This Will Destroy You and the soundscapes of Mogwai and Your Ten Mofo, as hearing the crackling electronics of Isan and Múm, to make a few comparisons. According to his artist page, Galano also gets his inspiration from bands like Efterklang, Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor and composers such as Nyman and Glass, not the least of names.
What does it all sound like then? I’m really not into the track-by-track description of a record. Well okay then, just the first song. ‘The Dawn and The Embrace’ (yes, this title looks a bit like Explosions in the Sky’s ‘The Birth and Death of the Day’) begins quietly. A glockenspiel melody is enhanced with some crackling electronics, a guitar, and the sound of strings. Halfway there, as befits post-rock, the song ‘explodes’, to finish with the same sounds as in the intro. If you write it like that, it sounds a bit static, but the execution is truly beautiful. On the rest of the EP I can only say that it is very beautiful and very worth listening.
The debut of this Italian musician is one that is in the eye, or rather, jump in the ear. At first listening, it’s the first half of the record that gets to me, the other sings seem to go on a little (don’t know how to say it exactly, I mean they seem quiet and anremarkable) . A few spins later however, you come to the conclusion that all songs on “The Longed-For Season” are just very good.
Link to the original Dutch Translation
