Air Sea Land Ensemble – Tales From The Breathing Planet

Description

AIR SEA LAND ENSEMBLE

The Air Sea Land Ensemble sparked from composer Simone Pirisi’s encounter with producer Roberto Colella, founder of Redwood Recordings, a label focused on blending genres from different cultures and musical backgrounds. Simone Pirisi is as a composer and double and electric bass player, with classical and jazz upbringing, yet regularly entertaining genres such as instrumental tango, klezmer, rock, and heavy metal. This venture allows him to use his multifaceted tool set to create vibrantly vivid yet accessible melodies. Such influences translate into a sound profile with chamber music undertones, mostly due to western’s fine tradition’s instruments (violin, viola, cello, double bass, piano, saxophone, renaissance flutes), while maintaining a modern language. Air Sea Land’s outputs span from duet to quintet; they’re short and accessible, but never ordinary, pieces. They express in a variety of forms, such as song, romance, jazz, waltz, which find a common thread in melodic paths with untamed rhythm. The themes are highly personified, with a strong psychological component, almost alluding to characters living within the musical space. The music offered through this project has such an effective representational quality that it can be juxtaposed to any imagery, while still independent enough to be enjoyed as an instrumental concert. 

Tracklist: 

1 – In The Shade Of The Trees

2 – Inner Flow

3 – Dizziness

4 – Blowing On A Pinwheel

5 – Shivers

6 – A Child’s Gift

7 – Flight Of The Phoenix

8 – Flowers Made Of Gold

9 – Ethereality

10 – Trees In Sunlight

11- Windchild

12 – Youth Memory

The following is a brief description of each piece, almost an ID of sort:

1. In the shade of the trees: Viola, Cello, Double-bass –  a lower strings trio consisting of viola, cello, and a double bass. Traditional heavy metal has inspired this piece, particularly in its riffs and epic melodies. It alternates vibrant string accents and suggestive pizzicatos. The mysterious and inspiring Antica Monterano, a post-imperial roman village surrounded by Tuscia’s woods, served as location for the band’s second ever video clip, based on this song. 
2. Inner flow: Alto Sax, Violin, Cello, Double-bass, Piano –  striking and highly rhythmic piece, sustained by a resilient bass typical of rock music. On top of it, we find lyrical and strongly rhythmic melodies, alternating alto sax and strings. It also debuted as the band’s first videoclip, in the evocative location of Teatro Sociale, in Amelia. 
3. Dizziness: Tenor Sax, Violin, Cello, Double-bass, Piano this piece also features a potent bass riff; this song was originally conceived for a female voice, double bass, and beatbox. Its chorus shows pop-rock influences, dressed in a sound that echoes the 1980s. The piece ends with an epic and melancholic coda.
4. Blowing On A  Pinwheel: Violin, Cello, Piano, Double-bass –  a passionate waltz, with an alternation of pizzicatos and strings. Its goal is to bring up the image of air being blown through a pinwheel. The piece features three main themes. The listener’s attention is constantly contended between light and dark. 
5. Shivers: Violin, Cello, Piano, Double-bass, Tenor Recorder – after its mysterious intro, heavily featuring charming renaissance flutes, this piece opens up in a singable chorus, unmistakably Italian, in which violins and flutes duet, on top of the rest of the ensemble. 
6. A Child’s Gift: Piano and Violin –  a lullaby for violin and piano, a sweet romance with a more dramatic core. It features multiple violin effects (trills, glindings, pizzicatos).
7. Flight Of The Phoenix: Violin, Cello, Piano, Double-bass  – another incessant bass paves the way for a fast and pressing piece, inspired by latin and progressive rock. The lively chorus is marked by cello’s pizzicatos. 
8. Flowers Made Of Gold: Violin, Cello, Piano, Double-bass, Tenor Recorder –  this atmospheric piece starts with a jazzy intro, before the bass veers it into a peaceful opening in its chorus. It then closes with an evocative counterpoint, a clear baroque inspiration, featuring all instruments. 
9. Ethereality: Violin, Cello, Piano,Tenor Recorder – a moving, instrumental song, poetic and delicate. The flute leads the main melody, while an overwhelming legato of piano notes creates a soft harmonic underlying.
10. Trees In Sunlight: Violin, Cello, Piano, Double-bass – this song has a pop root with classical inserts, and it’s one of the cheeriest and most    serene track in the album. It opens with a bright intro, followed by a typical stanza structure, before ending the cycle with the initial intro.
11. Windchild: Bassoon, Violin, Cello, Double Bass and Piano – this marks the bassoon’s only appearance, a noble instrument that usually belongs in classical music. “Windchild” is the track that most reminds of classical and chamber music, thanks to its elevated themes and arrangements.
12. Youth Memory: Violin, Cello, Piano, Double-bass  – this piece is built on the romantic and melancholic exchange between violin and cello. Both instruments let loose with colorful virtuosos, solo as well as together.

MISSION

Air Sea Land is a concept that finds its root in nature’s powers, and in the strength of the human mind. Air is wind, life’s breath and invisible embrace, like the energy that dwells in music; it’s the space in which both hawk and nightingale perform their poetry in motion. Sea is depth, abyss and liquid embrace; it’s where dolphins dance among the waves, where tides crash on the cliffs and the coral reef thrives. 

Earth is rock and nutrients, vast plains where horses run, steep hills where deer hop, where squirrels chase each other, and the wolf leads the pack; it’s the foundation where everything is built, the house that all of us inhabit. Air Sea Land is the sound of both nature and the modern, technology-laden, man, that will always be connected to it no matter what; it’s constant yearning towards the balance between nature and technology, inspiration and construction. 

The “Air Sea Land Ensemble” are:

Simone Pirisi: Double bass

Mizuho Ueyama: Violin, viola

Gianluca Pirisi: Cello

Francesco Ensabella: Piano

Stefano Ensabella: Tenor Sax, Alto Sax, Tenor Recorder

Additional musician:  Simone Salerni: Bassoon on Windchild

Original instrument board use for recording: 

Flute: Tenor recorder Rafi, by M° Francesco Li Virghi

Saxophons: Alto Sax and Tenor Sax R1 jazz, by Rampone & Cazzani

Cello by Giulio Cesare Gigli, Roma, ca 1760

Double Bass by Horst Gruenert, Penzberg, 2003

Violin and Viola: both ancient instruments difficult to assign.

Bassoon: Masi – Florence  2001

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All tracks composed by: Simone Pirisi

Artistic Production: Simone Pirisi and Rob Colella

Executive Production:  Simone Pirisi 

All tracks published by : Surabaya music publishing  (p) & © 2019 – Redwood Recordings / Surabaya music publishing 

S.i.a.e. – made in EU  –

Photo by Rob Colella

Contacts: Via A.Cadamosto, 12 – 00154 – Rome – Italy

Label Official Site:  www.funkyjuice.com – e-mail : promo@www.funkyjuice.com