Dave Vettraino – Exercise (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 33:05 minutes | 386 MB | Genre: Electronic
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fire Talk
‘Exercise’ opens with a deep breath of a drone, cracking the seal of a window as you take in the day’s first breeze. As the diaphragm of the drone rises and falls, the first of many lasting guitar structures on ‘Exercise’ cycles around a chiming piano. The piano motif embodies the nature of Vettraino’s process making ‘Exercise’; played and recorded during an idle moment at Jamdek Studios, it’s these usually inconsequential minutes, not redeemable for much more than a dead-eyed stare, that Vettraino has threaded into a cohesive musical drift. ‘Morning Music’ is a term I’ve heard Dave use dozens of times over the years; both to describe his A.M. listening routines of John Fahey, North Americans, Alice Coltrane, and Natural Information Society, but also how he described his vision for this set of recordings at least a year before he began to write and record ‘Exercise’ in September 2018. More than matching the music to a particular time of day, which he admits he strayed away from as the record went on, he said the project was “figuring out how to make harmonically still or droney music without overdeveloping it”. Recorded over three separate periods before finishing this April amongst a predictable void of sessions, Vettraino chose ‘Exercise’ as a literal title and a jab at himself, showing the calm and humility central to his character.
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