menomasia is not just a music column; it is an extemporaneous account of what music and art convey and how without them this world would not be so full of life. Happy reading!
Christian “DeLord” Carlino
Dardust concert review in Bologna
In a landscape dominated by the continuous feeling of decadence or mediocrity, how can we try to detach ourselves?
During the past year I have attended several seminars on personal growth and have begun to apply my worldview. (if you’re wondering what I’m talking about, click here)
Last weekend I went to Dardust‘s concert. Finally, I feel like saying. I discovered this project in 2015 with the release of the first single“Sunset on M.” while I was in Turin; at that time I was working on a project collaboration but that’s another story…
S.A.D. STORM AND DRUGS is the title of this latest installment of the Dardust trilogy that I came to enjoy live.
Dardust was inspired in his choice of title by the term “Sturm und Drang,” the late 18th-century German current that featured a number of writers and painters such as Goethe and Caspar Friedrich.
“Basic concept of current Sturm und Drang was the Sublime which is a dual feeling, namely fear in the face of often frightening scenery and ecstasy in front of the same scenery,” Dardust says “This concept is perfectly represented in the painter’s images David Caspar Friedrich characterized by figures portrayed from behind, which are called ruckenfigur, facing often stormy and frightening scenarios. In 2018 I felt like I was in a Friedrich painting. When you cannot change a situation, the only thing you can do is to change yourself, and I chose to take refuge in creative ecstasy, escaping and taking refuge in Edinburgh, where I wrote Sublime and the whole album.”
The sense of “Sublime,” i.e., fear and ecstasy, can also be associated with one of the key concepts of the “Chemical Generation” of the 1990s, when Irvine Welsh-with “Trainspotting”-wrote its manifesto. Hence the choice to write it between London and Edinburgh, just where “Trainspotting” was set.
Welcome to the dardust experience, yes because that is what it is all about. A performance divided into two acts: in the first, which is very introspective, one is transported into a musical world where listening, emotions and the heart are at the center, until reaching the climax interrupted by the change of sound that is brilliantly signaled through the arrival of a storm. A storm that anticipated a second part of the show where a sublime use of electronics accompanied the audience within fine and refined sounds, a celebration of listening to good music.
And it is really listening that I wanted to focus on; when you are a musician, it is never easy to enjoy a concert. You spend time listening to what sounds are coming your way, where they are coming from, and how they were ingeniously produced. I chose for this concert to immerse myself in the sounds and take home some clips of the moments that impressed me the most.
Why am I telling you this? Let’s start with the performance.
Behind the dardust experience there is an enormous attention to detail and cultural research that I felt was missing in the Italian music scene. Dardust is the first pianist who has been able to fuse the sound of the piano with very fine and sophisticated electronics; until now I had only found this in other pianists such as Olafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm and the like but not yet in an Italian project that has no small international flavor.
If there is one certainty I take home from this concert, it is that when you make good music people are much more likely to listen to you but also that when good music exists in your worldview, it will come looking for you.
Enjoy your music and good listening.
I have always dreamed of being able to write freely about music. The article you just read is part of my project that I called menomasia (union of words less bad so be it); menomasia is not just a music column; it is an extemporaneous account of what music and art convey and how without them this world would not be so full of life.
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