Releases

Astrobal – L’uomo e la natura | Karaoke Kalk 136

Artist:


Astrobal

Title:


L'uomo e la natura

Format:


LP/DL

Download via Bandcamp


Cat.No:


Karaoke Kalk 136

Release Date:


07.02.2025

Shipping out on or around February 7, 2025

Product Notes Vinyl:
- Edition Of 300
- 140g Black Vinyl
- Spined Sleeve 3mm, inside/out, 1-colored
- White Inner Sleeve
- Sealed

*All orders include an instant download of the album

 24,90

SKU: N/A

Emmanuel Mario returns to Karaoke Kalk with his third album under his Astrobal moniker for the Berlin-based imprint. »L’uomo e la natura« (»Man and Nature«) sees the prolific drummer and producer, who has worked with artists such as Laetitia Sadier and label mate Pink Shabab, take a different musical route than before. The French electronic music composer pays homage to the spirit of library music while also making concessions to different strains of pop and even classical music. With only two of the ten songs putting words to the music, »L’uomo e la natura« is a masterful exercise in the evocation of atmospheres: expressing much while saying very little outright—show, don’t tell.

The album was born out of a desire to push the envelope. »I wanted to make music that was both pop and ambitious in its chord progressions as well as surprising in its construction,« explains the Paris-based artist. Taking inspiration from library music artists such as Alessandro Alessandroni or Bruno Nicolai as well as the more cosmic strains of electronic instrumental music, he strove »to create a soundtrack that would immediately bring to mind outer space.« The first of the three singles released ahead of the full album, »L’abeille poupre,« captures this spirit with funky rhythms and an overjoyed interplay of different melodies, all tied together by wordless yet terminally catchy vocals.

The second single, »Miami 2064,« traverses through many different moods in its six-minute run-time: Starting off as neo-noir synth-wave piece, it then proceeds to pay its dues to the masters of the cosmic music tradition such as Tangerine Dream or, of course, Jean-Michel Jarre before slowly descending back to Earth with guitars and dreamy synthetic vocals, playfully punctuated by a plethora of wistful melodies. It is the perfect encapsulation of the open-ended approach Mario follows throughout the entire album, taking full creative licence in regards to songwriting and arrangements. »I wanted to surprise myself,« he shrugs. He succeeded.

»L’uomo e la natura« rewards multiple listens not only emotionally, but also intellectually. »I also wanted to talk about politics and ecology, because it’s impossible not to,« Mario notes. Some of the track titles express this more openly than others and the two title tracks sung by Mario and Nina Savary use French and Italian lyrics, respectively. However, as a whole the album leaves things open to interpretation. Does »The End of Capitalism« sound elegiac or triumphant? And what do you actually make of this musical vision of the Floridian metropolis, whose mere existence is threatened by climate change already today, four decades from now? Mario doesn’t necessarily answer these questions—he doesn’t tell, he shows.

https://www.instagram.com/astrobal/

Tracklist:

A1 S.I.V.A A2 Galassia M81 A3 L'abeille pourpre A4 Miami 2064 A5 L'uomo e la natura (part1) Una melodia, i miei ricordi B1 Dernier stop avant Neptune B2 Mer Méditerranée B3 The end of capitalism B4 La Terre c'est l'espace B5 L'uomo e la natura (part2) Sogni e realta