Dive into the diverse sounds of Clorinde

June 23, 2016 9:39 PM

If you look at nothing more than album titles, you'll get the impression that the duo of the brothers Andreas and Simone Salvatici, who record and perform as Clorinde, pull in a diverse set of sounds, from The Gardens of Bomarzo, named for the Italian park of stone monsters, to The Poetry of Charles B., with song titles pulled from Bukowski. If that's too vague, "Imagine an orchestral and oriental Efterklang reworking “Selected Ambient Works” by Aphex Twin."

Clorinde was founded by brothers Andrea and Simone Salvatici after moving to the UK from Italy in 2005. Drawing inspiration from late medieval Europe, they play in minimalist, cyclic oblongs with room for improvisation inside the ellipses, wielding an array of plucked acoustic instruments, mandolin, bouzouki and banjo, kalimba, zither and ukulele, as well as bowed and struck glockenspiel, keyboards, drums and electric guitar. Their wood, metal and catgut sounds startlingly crisp, clear and contemporary, but the brothers titivate them with digital electronics to imbue mustiness and patina.

More information from Cyclic Defrost's review of The Creative Listener, the debut album from Clorinde.

If you want to dig deeper, the brothers have also shared Sound on Poetry, their "first attempt to work and experiment with sound structures and different media like lost and found recording of poetry in the web and videos," before they were officially Clorinde. You can also browse an odd selection of clips on Simone Salvatici's YouTube account, or follow them on Facebook.

posted by filthy light thief (4 comments total)

To be completely clear, they have all four albums up on their bandcamp page, and some of this streaming on their Soundcloud account, both of which are linked above.

You can also stream their music on groovesharks.org, which looks like a clone of Grooveshark.com, which went dark over a year ago, and also points to GrooveMP3.com, where you can also apparently stream their three major albums.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:43 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Thanks for this. Never heard of them before, but the Aphex Twin hook got me.
posted by synthetik at 10:05 AM on June 24, 2016

It's a bit of an odd hook, but the Aphex Twin + Efterklang is a decent "Recommended If You Like" shortcut for The Gardens of Bomarzo, which has more stutter edits/ effects.

The Poetry of Charles B. is more postrock, as is their pre-debut album (Sound on Poetry), while The Creative Listener is something like Early Music + non-Western influences through a bit of a postrock filter.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:13 AM on June 24, 2016

When you start to talk stutter/edits/glitch I think more Telafon Tel Aviv or early Hybrid, and these guys have a lot of similarities.

I like it. It's smart and fun to listen to.
posted by synthetik at 10:24 AM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]