Francis Gri is a relatively unsung ambient sage from Italy who prefers to lurk in the Bandcamp shadows rather than the bright streaming lights, although those that know definitely know. Multiple releases of his have appeared on the blog over the years and he even did a fundraising release for the environmental lawyers at Client Earth via the TSMM label. Check them out if you’ve been feeling a bit helpless the last few days, they’re making a difference.
His recordings are usually delicate, fragile, electroacoustic affairs, which is where I tend to lean, so we hit it off immediately. I’ve probably thrown the word minimal in the mix to describe many of them, as the space is obviously as important as the sounds to him, but this one takes the biscuit.
Here Gri focusses on the piano sounds, which must have been more of a listening than playing exercise, the notes mostly allowed to fade to nothing before new ones even contemplated; the patience and restraint is impressive, especially considering the track lengths.
Somewhat counter intuitively he brought in an extra pair of hands to help realise his new ultra-minimal vision and sent the recordings to Andrew Chalk, who fortunately is similarly minded and sympathetic to the cause, eschewing ego for the lightest of note enhancing touches, a wise choice as the source material has a purity and perfection that would have been a shame to befog.
The LP is a wonderfully calming/contemplative/palliative (delete as required) exercise in minimal ambient piano. Hopefully this less is more chapter of Gri’s career still has some pages to turn.
Playlist Companion:
Unfortunatley this is a Bandcamp only release or else I'd drop a track from it in the Slow Ambient Playlist, but you can find a ton of similarly horizontal minded artists in the playlist, almost 4 hours worth in fact, check it out - you might like it.
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