Spannung The Reviews
Translation from Italian Press
(DarkRoom Magazine)
(Masseria dei Suoni)
MASSIMO PIROTTA(Vorrei)
(Sapere in Campania)
(Non solo Prog)
GIOVANNI ROSSI (Industrial Revolution)
Related article: Romina Daniele's talent and spark
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION JANUARY 1st 2016
<< Starting the 2016 with a freshly released album. 'Spannung' is Romina Daniele's new work, a triple that sums up the beauty of 31 tracks. Pretentious? Not at all. Excessive? Not at all. Anachronistic? Maybe yes, but it would be better to say 'courageous', in an era in which the hit-and-run format of the single streaming on Deazer or Spotify seems to be swallowing up the market.
Spannung is a refined work, studied in the smallest details, calibrated in the wonderful balance of a voice that manages to express itself with extreme naturalness precisely in the difficult territory of instrumental performance. Romina uses her vocal cords as if they were a real instrument, making them the protagonists of the long study of 'Dasein', an elegy that settles along all three albums in various suites. With the dark ambient of 'Resonance' the singer shows even more her mastery, capable of organizing its lines into a lyrical performance worthy of the name. Then there is the colorful 'Sycamores Trees', a condensation of emotions, in which the singer's texture unfolds all its grace, at the service of an evocative piece full of atmosphere. And when it seems that everything could be extraordinarily and pleasantly repetitive, here comes a gem like 'Blue Spirit Blues', pure and full-blooded blues, on which Romina lasciviously and convincingly settles. Surprises do not end here, there are many other songs and vocal interpretations to which everyone should make their entrance as a virgin listener, without any spoilers to ruin the surprise. And above all there is the closing with the twenty-four minutes of 'Dasein III', n even more fascinating experiment of sound investigation.
I was fascinated by Romina Daniele's voice while sliding along the magic of 'Spannung', produced in a superlative way, orchestrated between electronics and classicism, arranged with an abundance of details. She composes, sings, arranges and works in the complicated universe of experimental music with a surprising naturalness. Spannung is an album that should not miss in the collection of anyone who loves contemporary experimentation, in particular the voice and its multiple expressive possibilities. And Romina Daniele is a seductive, fascinating and masterful interpreter of the thousand possibilities of the human vocal cords. >> Giovanni Rossi with Industrial Revolution
VORREI.ORG FEBRUARY 1st 2016
<< An Amazon and her courage. Red, blue and black, three albums in which to put all of one’s Ego, existence, being. Challenging the market rules in which everything is hastily ground. “Spannung” had a long gestation (starting in 2009) and from it came out a research work with an impeccable outcome and a highly suggestive path full of surprises. 31 “situationist” songs, in which the artist shows enormous compositional skills, uncommon vocals and that together are the best acknowledgement of what can be created outside of the canonical schemes (...) RominaDaniele is a portento, an artist who could hardly think to relax on what is not new and already seen and felt. Been there, done that. "Spannung" has a key that opens more doors (inside and outside) and gives life to new sounds. Theoretical path, balance and sense of dering, stability and an attitude that has as its final goal the high profile. "Spannung" is a all three (perfect number ?, triple cd, three hours of music) that requires attention and more listenings. It is not the usual routine, because it emanates underground poetry and to catch and taste it is on the listener. It is impossible to remain indifferent to the centrifugal re-readings of "Summertime" (George Gershwin), "Sycamore Trees" (Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch), "Special Delivery Blues" (Odetta Holmes). It is impossible not to be moved before the multiple approaches of "Daisen" and the six minutes of "The absent nature". Bluesin’ heart, "scientific" electronics, a voice that is a complete and original songbook. Stunning (...) >> [Massimo Pirotta with Vorrei.org]
MASSERIA DEI SUONI / CONSEQUENZ JANUARY 27th 2016
<< We are not used to works like “Spannung” by Romina Daniele. The reason is simple: for some time now research has decided to abdicate the dense work, declaring itself defeated. Shores of resistance have naturally always survived, in the ravines of the known, often managing, in the institutional absence, to find sporadic lines of consent. The line of the avant-garde has been all in that hyphen between absence-consent. Now “Spannung”, this monumental project by Romina Daniele, presents itself as an assertive, musical and – in the opinion of this writer – also theoretical stele. It is a stele and also a fiery dart: will it succeed in 'breaking' the Italian code of silence?
"Spannung" is a box set that has been through seven years of 'gestation', and which includes three discs, one red, the color of the cover and the booklet (and 'red' is also the image of the artist which transpire from the beautiful photos), one blue and the last black. In the cd I, the voice of Romina Daniele, her compositions and her electronics. In the second, with the same grade of poetics and language, the vocal path continues, but with more interlocutions: Luca Caiazza and Emanuele Cutrona (Bass), Luca de Maio (Guitar), giving a more performative vision, perhaps live, which completes and integrates the spectrum of what Romina Daniela can do, both in a technical-musical sense (already known to us) but above all, here, in a design sense. The architecture of "Spannung" is solid, well thought out, precisely 'monolithic'.
Then in the first two CDs there are some known places, let's say some 'street indicators', to use a Francophone language: Gershwin, Bessie Smith, Frank Sinatra, some traditional. These tracks are like a bank to not freak out: that is the art of permutation, of recreating, of doing what one wants of the known, without betraying it, innovating it as well. This means memory, but not necessarily in the sense of appropriation (which is only an individual movement, and has little to do with uncontainable imagination). On CD III, the black one (which is my favorite), the circle closes with only two compositions, perhaps the longest and which I would consider almost as 'little operetta', capable of being self-sufficient: “Dasein III” (almost 25 minutes), preceded by “La natura assente” (6:24 dense minutes), which reminds me so much of the string of significance “Petrarca-Ungaretti-Cilio”, which I also referred in the record “Dell'universo assente” published and reprinted several times by Die Schachtel from Milan. According to that string, which leads to Luciano Cilio, “Laura is an absent universe..... The idea of absence is a world far away in space and time, which returns to be heard alive in the foliage of feeling, memory and fantasy. It is above all a breaking of the darkness of memory” (G. Ungaretti, “Note – Sentimento del Tempo”).
Of course, I don't know how much of this this title has a correspondence of architectural intentionality. The greatness of this musician, who is not just a musician, stands actually in her ability to propose both a compositional action and a bold vocal gesture, she takes challenges, she dares and explores almost virgin lands like very few others did (and I think to Demetrio Stratos of course: I believe Romina is one of the very few living artists who can use the voice like Demetrio did), and at the same time she has a very solid aesthetic and philosophical approach. Someone wrote that one cannot ignore Being. Personally, in a similar aesthetic project, I preferred to refer to the multiplicity of meaning, of subjects, of feeling, leaving my aesthetic project open through the work's capacity for heteroreference, and not to the exhaustive sense for which "we are the there and the here of the world (Dasein)". In my opinion, hetero-reference, the other, are much more interesting. The thought of Romina Daniele, which gives this extraordinary strength to her music, is about searching for the authentic, the starting and closing point, where the other is found in "being together thrown into the world". It is another bank, another chance of the authentic. For this reason, I like to conclude with her words: "Voice stakes everything, at higher grades of expotion, in front of the structures of construct. And voice is man here. Being-together the enigma we take care of at the edge of the struggle as well, and the limit is not where one thing is ending, indeed is where everything begins its essence". >> Girolamo De Simone with Masseriadeisuoni.org
NON SOLO PROG (NOT ONLY PROG) JANUARY 19th 2016
<< Eight years later “Aisthànomai, Il Dramma della Coscienza”, the experimental vocal artist as well as a painter, poet and photographer, Romina Daniele, is back full of experiences, grown with the numerous live dates over time and with a Blues vein that you don't expect.
This sumptuous triple cd shows us the vocal experimentation can also commit to the melodic kind of music. Like it happened to the Area of Demetrio Stratos when they were managing to merge vocal experimentation with the song formula. In any case Daniele manages to make his vocal skills an instrument with a well-defined personality, guided by his own experience.
“Spannung” is accompanied by an exhaustive and substantial booklet containing elucidating passages regarding the emotional journey of listening. In it, you can also enjoy the photos highlighting the beautiful sensual face of the singer, as well as the special aura that surrounds the expression of the face and body. Music and body essence, research and dedication to the Blues, and to. the classics, all under a refined guise. Another detail is also evident, the red color the red color surrounds every image and gives strength with all its passionality.
“Spannung” contains songs recorded between 2009 and 2015 and begins with “Dasein I.I”, which we will find in all three albums, like a common thread that differs only from the title in numerical crescendo (Dasein I.II, Dasein I.III etc.etc.). Electronics and voice, vibrato and acute, an intro to a full-bodied and refined sound path. Striking the interpretation of "Summertime", revisited and corrected by the impetuous body of the vocal use over a base that is once again electronic. The warm soul of "Sycamore Trees" written by Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch finds in this new guise a modern freshness, accompanied by vocal recordings deeply developed giving depth to the listening experience. “Outside Me” is the new version of the song “All’Esterno Di Me” by the same Romina Daniele, richer and more emphatic. Here it is the field more defined and deeper of the musical and vocal essence, and we continue to find it in the subsequent “Dasein”. Often the music transmits anguish and do so not only with sounds, but also through interpretations dear to the “Teatro Della Voce” (voice theater).
The Blues that warms the heart follows, with the classic “Blue Spirit Blues” from 1930. One of the most interesting moments of the album, in the opinion of this writer, is the poem “Assenza (O Soglia Del Mio Dolore)”, where the singer in this case also narrator, is accompanied by Emanuele Cutrona on bass. Reading the CD booklet while listening, we often meet the Romina’s eyes, intense and deep as her music.
The second CD starts with a traditional, “Oh Rosie” recorded in 2011. Folk peeps out in the artist’s background, demonstrating the broad vision and experience acquired over time. Beautiful the cover of Frank Sinatra "I am a fool to want you (Take II)" as well, where the sound is not transported sappily, but there is an attempt to give it intensity and impetus, almost as trying to desecrate it, stripping it and shouting it. Another classic Blues is “Backwaters Blues” by Bessie Smith, Romina Daniele makes us understand how important the basis of modern music is. Here on guitar there is Luca De Maio, while on bass Luca Caiazza. Another traditional piece revisited and distorted is “I Went To That Place Alone”, then returning to the Blues with “Timber” by Odetta Holmes. There is also a piece with the band, including drums, that of Manuel Taranto, and it is “I Put A Spell On You”, intense, heart-felt and biting. The second homage to Frank the Voice is “I Am A Fool To Want You (Take I)”, turned inside out, staggering, a window for a vocal wah wah on the edge between provocation, yawning and mockery.
The third CD is composed of two songs, “La Natura Assente (III)”, a gloomy gym of vibrating and refined sounds, and the long suite “Dasein III”, in turn a dark presence of spectral vibrations.
After so many years, Romina Daniele cannot leave listeners indifferent, so here it is a sumptuous work where research, anguish, and soul meet in a result far from the obvious of today's products.
Music and sounds to think, to hit the nerves, to relax, to frighten, to be amazed, to learn, to warm up, to freeze, to .... >> Massimo Salari with NonSoloProgRock
SAPERE IN CAMPANIA JANUARY 26th 2016
<<We received from Milan the work as latest musical efforts of the most articulate and extraordinarily lyrical voice, as well as technical, born in the shadow of the Vesuvius, here she is Romina Daniele. (...) between the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016, Romina has published two works: Spannung (monumental triple cds solo work) and Absence (by Sheen, a project in collaboration with Lorenzo Marranini).Spannung (German term for "tension") is her third solo album, a triple audio cd between voice and electronics, textuality and improvisation, solo recordings and with the band, extended vocals and blues.(...) Absence is conceived and developed by the collaboration between Romina and Lorenzo Marranini (co-founder of the RDM Records). We are going to say nothing more about, you should get these works:: such records are so rare in Italy as they show how possible to do truly artistic research is. Romina Daniele carries on a research which can right away be defined technically solid, critically complex, philosophically profound and, above all, so far emotionally heartbreaking and with a strong, we can say magmatic, inspiration. >> Vincenzo Notaro with Saperincampania.it
DARKROOK MAGAZINE MAY 16th 2016
<<.This mammoth triple CD, whose sumptuous digipack packaging completed with an extensive booklet recalls the excellence of certain collections of classical music (…) Such a large amount of material (over three hours in total) that it is difficult to fully explain its contents in the space of a normal review (…) her incredible vocal chords allow her to be anything: a scared little girl, a complaining old woman, a thoughtful dark lady, a disillusioned dreamer, a witch in the den or any other figure she wants to impersonate. But his voice is also made - and perhaps above all - to go beyond the words, whether recited or sung, so much so that it often becomes a sound, a scream, a rattle, an operatic vocalize or a restless verse, to convey that "o be stake of one's being into the being itself with everything of us into the world before it went away in vain" to which the official notes refer. The voice is centrality and fulcrum of a bold and borderless experimental journey that finds its culmination in the third disk, with the almost 25 minutes of the lugubrious "Dasein III" as a worthy closing of a work that pushes forward the known boundaries of the research vocal. >> Roberto Alessandro Filippozzi with Darkroom-magazine.it
Out December 24th 2015
Spannung by Romina Daniele is a triple cd audio, with 31 tracks, 36 pages booklet, 3 hours of music, between Electronics and vocal and music experimentation, live studio sessions in solo and with the band.
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