Andrea Gabriele ~ Biography of You

A hardback book, seven videos in multiple languages and an evocative score ~ who could resist such a thing?  This ambitious project has been on the market for a while but has only recently been released on iTunes; we’re happy to spread the word.  And “word” is key in this exploration of connection and conversation; each track contains poetry on subjects that range from human origins to primitive thoughts to complex emotions.  At the end, the subject returns to the beginning, implying that life is cyclical.

Andrea Gabriele weaves different soundscapes on these seven diverse tracks, which range from ambient to drone to electronic pulse, along with occasional synthesized choir.  It’s not world music; it’s music about the world.  As the monologues tend to be brief, some of the pieces are nearly instrumental.  Others – unless one happens to be fluent in multiple languages – wash over the listener, who must intuit meaning from tone.   The French speaker seems friendly, the Russian warm.  Only in the first half of “Recording Solo” does the music retreat to a noticeable degree, only to flood the speakers in the second.  Translations are provided in the digital and physical booklets.

The videos add an essential dimension.  Without the audio, the words lack inflection.  Without the video, the music lacks the ability to speak fully.  The sounds may be lovely (especially the bass on “I’m Looking at You”), but their overall intention is lost.  Add the images, and everything changes.  “What is the solution to love?” asks Gabriele in the liner notes, answering his own question with a statement about expression.  And yet it is not until we hear the elements of the first track combined – the poetry, the spoken word, the popping electronics and the abstract crayon squiggles – that we begin to glean his overall meaning.  In the second video, the crayon turns to yarn, as two pairs of hands twirl the threads; in the third, a pair of belugas performs a slow blue dance.  And then the human body, strobed.  It’s not hard to find connections.  The final video offers a swirl of smoke and spark, a live action alternate to the opening sequence, as if to propose an eternal truth: through art, we find definition.  Whether art is the lens through which we see the world, or the world is the lens through which we see art, it doesn’t matter; in the end, the project is a tabula rasa: a biografia di te, and te alone.  (Richard Allen)

Available here