CD - Serein
This is the debut album by the Alex and Svitlana Samoylenko Smalley duo, aka Olan Mill - two rather cultured and refined audioartists who propose elegiac instrumental sequences with elegant and solemn jumps that are modulated throughout the scores. The melodious succession of pipe organ and guitar sounds are divided into slow and delicate steps, which also include piano and violin in passages that are suggestive of pseudo-classicist matrices. Very harmonious and quiet chords are presented, supple and tightened in evanescent drones: symphonic elements with church-like reverbs, resonant with a chilly retro grace. The couple - unlike many contemporary composers - are impervious to certain minimalist temptations, preferring to feed on their own developments with several ambient harmonies, unashamedly melancholic and dreamy, enveloping and comfortable. This is a trend that seems to be the result of a creative reaction to the clichés of "less is more", a concept that, at many different latitudes, has been dominant over the past two decades.
Aurelio Cianciotta