Italiano
Re-Birth by Pier Bernardi, the 2017 record where the Italian bass player express his view about contemporary music in ten compositions exploring different ways of playing the bass as main melodic instrument.
As a composer Pier tends to draw heavily from european music history, a legacy of being born in the country of Vivaldi, Puccini, Verdi and Morricone so heavily related to classical music, but he is also a pioneer of electric tapping compositions, most notably in songs like Grace, the album trademark, World Syncope and While you are sleeping.
His collaboration with synth wiz Giovanni Amighetti featured that distinctive contemporary-vintage sound in several tracks, this textural approach, which rejects traditional notions of thematic improvisation in favour of a style described as long-winded edge scale, has driven to a never heard before merge of melodic lines in the low register.
Other experiments have included setting the heavy rock acoustic drums by Michael Urbano together with the jazz ECM italian-norwegian maestro Paolo Vinaccia, the rock guitar by Ace from Skunk Anansie with the new wave of David Rhodes from Peter Gabriel and the infinite echoes of sàmi global artist Roger Ludvigsen.
When a single bass guitar creates a full mixed choir the possibilities become endless and so the album last opening to the south-italian traditional music of Dressed upon us.
Bernardi’s compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and melodic twists, and are consistent with his unorthodox approach to the bass guitar, which combines a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of switched note releases and silences. Add the belcanto melodic attitude and you have brand new music to hear, sense and feel.