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Pillow, "Flowing Seasons"
Flowing Seasons is the solo debut from Luca Di Mira of Italy’s Giardini di Miro. At times orchestral, beat-driven, or ambient, the emphasis is on lush beauty, a quality these mellow songs rarely lack.
Di Mira is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, often finding a synthesis of electronic and acoustic instruments so perfectly blended that the differences between them are frequently difficult to discern. The arrangements are elaborate yet without any superfluous orchestration. Instead they proceed like languid currents that are always on the move and never stagnant. Although it’s true that a streak of melancholy runs through most if not all of the tracks, the effect is more usually wistful than depressing.
One thing Di Mira doesn’t do, however, is sing. Those duties are shared by three guests, all of whom are excellent singers capable of lending Di Mira’s songs the emotional vulnerability needed to remain convincing. Patrick Zimmer, who sings on two of the tracks, gets one of the album’s more notable lines on “Cut-Out-And-Keep Quarrels” when he sings, “I’ll take my credit cards/I’ll buy you a ghost.” This one, like most of the others, takes a while to unfold, but with rewarding results. A beat doesn’t surface until a few minutes into the song, but it embellishes the mood, extending the song’s effectiveness, as does the bass that enters a minute later. Other songs have a consistent approach, resulting in tracks like “Indecision” and “Mixologists and Waifs,” which are also both tender and thoughtful. “Tree Shadow” has the album’s only harsh elements, snippets of digital static that are used percussively, but they have a short leash and are thoroughly contained by the violin, piano, and classical guitar that surround them.
The album closes with the sweeping instrumental “With the Passing of the Seasons,” which finds Di Mira aided by four additional musicians on strings, clarinet, and drums, ending untidily with a few unexpected notes that are more of a question than a statement. Yet there’s no question that this is a marvelous debut that reveals more elegant layers with each listen.
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