ILLÁCHIME quartet . press notes

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Post-itrock.com, number 10, december 2004. www.post-itrock.com

Illàchime Quartet • CD 2004

Who are the Illàchime Quartet? Heirs of an intelligent progressive? Are they the representatives of a rock that spreads in all directions according to Zappa’s conception? Or maybe the King Crimson entangled as a cultural backgound? Jazz-rock as if the Canterbury school lesson didn’t leave a void? Classics fragments staggered all around? Soundtrack trip? I was surprised by the Illàchime Quartet. Listening to their music I found that it was made of heart, brain, structure, a touch of fantasy that has never done any harm, decadent atmospheres and a touch of sinister. They might not reach peaks of sales; it is likely that they will just appear on this magazine, but if in your opinion this way of being “retro” instead of “traditionalist” as it was for the Cerberus Shoal or for some Iceburn, has a reason to be, the Illàchime Quartet will certainly hit the target.
Andrea Ferraris

Blow Up Magazine, number 76, september 2004. www.blowupmagazine.com

Illàchime Quartet • CD
Illàchime/Demos • 4t-44:17

Many tendencies meet in the sound of the debutant Illàchime Quartet. They range from the classical, improvised or the ambient music to elements of minimalism and gothic suggestions. Making so various pulsions coexist requires instrumental magic, bent for composition, a good deal of unconsciousness but above all, it requires good taste.The founders of this project are Fabrizio Elvetico and Gianluca Paladino with the support of a team of collaborators. Thanks to their academic (the first one) and rock-influenced (the second one) backgrounds, the music of Illàchime Quartet boasts different artistic feelings that interpenetrate without changing radically their own essence.On this point it is important to consider the cohabitations realized in Cortile in Mockba and in Pale Fire representing a sort of math-rock whose pulsions to progressive flights find their well-balanced limit in the dialogues between cello and guitar but also in the successful piano understatement.The album is rich in samplings got in a Moscow palace or in an industial area as well as in a silos or listening to a valve radio.Inspired by a container for the storage of wheat, the masterpiece of the album Silos reflects the building of a magic structure where all the joints are tinged with electronic-glitch incandescences. The result is a very evocative kinematical development.
Stefano I. Bianchi

il Tirreno, september 2004. www.iltirreno.quotidianiespresso.it

Illàchime Quartet, “Illàchime Quartet”

The music experimentation and, at the same time, the purpose to make all the different artistic feelings coexist is not easy. The worst thing that can happen is to make a synthesis and, as a result, to obtain an hybrid creature. This is a risk that the two musicians Fabrizio Elvetico and Gianluca Paladino (assisted by Carlo Di Gennaro, Drummond Petrie e Mimmo Fusco) prevent very easily. It may be for a clear account or just for a magic alchemy, anyway all the pulsions that move this project come out without efforts and they easily become music. Even if this is neither classical nor rock music, neither minimalism nor pure improvisation, the Illàchime Quartet’s sound holds all these tendencies in itself. The album is rich in samplings and glitches as well as placid piano chords while some ambient suggestions evolve in fascinating kinematical progressions. It might seem just a meaningless pastiche, but in spite of all you can catch a very solid balance in this project.
Guido Siliotto

City, june 2004

Illàchime Quartet
demo
4 tracks, 44’14’’

It takes a good deal of courage to entitle the first track of a debutant album “The monopoly of boredom”. What’s weird is that the album contains just 4 tracks whose playing time ranges from 7 minutes and a half to the 11 minutes of the mentioned opening track. Anyway the Illàchime Quartet (uncatchable and satisfactory creature of the polyinstrumentalists Fabrizio Elvetico and Gianluca Paladino) do not tax the ears of the more sensitives. They succeed in capturing the attention of listeners thanks to hypnotic tracks, a perfect balance between the noisy avant-gard (quoting more or less consciously the Canterbury sound of Henry Cow or the rock-jazz of John Zorn) and a meticulous minimalist stucture, but also thanks to frequent improvisations. The Quartet, using both electronic keyboards and acoustic instuments as cello or piano, does not exceed in experimentations but it shows a remarkable predilection for melodic lines expecially in the piano parts performed by Fabrizio Elvetico. These parts are much closer to jazz than the bare and minimal interventions in the rhythmic sections. Built as it was the soundtrack of an imaginary movie the album is meeting with great success, revealing an unexpected ability to intrigue listeners. That’s why both the lovers of post-rock music or the experts of contemporary music could appreciate it.

english translation courtesy of annalisa di nicola