Birds Of Passage & Leonardo Rosado: Dear And Unfamiliar
Tobias FischerDear and Unfamiliar is the follow-up to the duo's debut Without the World. Should this ring the alarm bells of those who were blown away by the fragile lo-fi attitude of the debut and its entirely convincing compositions between song and drone?
Perhaps it would be accurate to say that Dear and Unfamiliar offers precisely what its title promises: Something you'll cherish straight from the very first note, but which also includes elements which you'll need to acquaint yourself with – especially with the way they're combined. Which means that you'll likely need a couple of spins before you'll realise just how well they go together. Rosado and Birds of Passage are eschewing the trivial and obvious approach of merely using the music as a carpet for the vocals and providing listeners with instant gratification. Instead, the music remains strangely fragmentary at times, allowing silence to trickle in and occasionally even developing skeletised rhythms, which appear to be running against each other. And in doing so, it is turning into an equitable partner of the lyrics.
All of this is paired with an etherealism which matches that of Without the World. Even more slow, even more calm, even more in between everything, this is a record which invents itself on each new listen.
By Hellmut Neidhardt
Homepage: Leonardo Rosado
Homepage: Birds of Passage
Homepage: Denovali Records
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