Aquarello
Destination: the Canary Islands. The best of his ensemble work with Alesini and Capanni.
"As mysteriously energised as living itself, with all its dazzling beauties, restlessness and rumbling tensions. It marshals the many traditions he's experienced over the long years into a creative whole, with a sheer child-like rapture in performing the result. Phew. It's not very often that a press release rises above banal platitudes, but that one from All Saints was absolutely spot on. 14 duos and trios with Capanni and Alesini mature the promise of Friendly Game. An added bonus is several of Roedelius' loveliest piano vignettes interpolated through the album. Recorded live in Lanzarote, the tapes skillfully edited by Felix Jay, Aquarello is indebted to the sun-baked island's volcanic geography and occasionally lapses into TV nature documentary mode: "Mirador" is all rumbling synths and Alesini's smoke-wreathed sax with wide-screen aerial perspectives from Capanni's e-guitar. Yet their telepathic fluidity shames those acts content to fulfil expectations that a group will go onstage to be a human jukebox and toss off whatever they put on CD.
