Leonardo Rosado – Mute Words review for Alternative Matter

http://alternativematter.net/reviews/leonardo-rosado-mute-words

Music often considered “drone” or “ambient” can frequently inspire a sensation of trepidation and doubt from the average listener with it connotations in new age, other worldly and frankly tiresome background noise. Leonardo Rosado, who is also known for his work with the Feedbackloop label, has created an off shoot to their ambient and experimental catalogue in Heart and Soul, which has been created primarily for poetry and music releases. “Mute Words” is the first release from this new project, and if further releases are up to this standard, then the label will surely be one to keep an eye on for innovation, and an example to those who may be afraid to immerse themselves in, or be troubled by, “ambient” music.

The music on “Mute Words” although recognisable by the layers of drone and atonal passages which weave a thread throughout, are given further levels of sensitivity with intimate droplets of found sounds, field recordings and barely perceptible piano passages. To attach further levels of awareness, three of the eight passages feature vocal contributions which, far from distracting the listener, give the sense that these pieces are organic in origin and add humanity and tenderness.

The voices of Barbara de Dominicis on “How Inbetween Became To Be” and Alicia Merz on “Out Of Pure Kindness” are somehow, however, heard as further sounds added to the already luscious landscape, and are almost voices lost in the ether, whilst “The Study of Doubt” which features the poetry of Michelle Seaman is delivered in a rather more deadpan fashion which allies itself more to the electronic personality of the surrounding sounds. The margin between the words themselves and the sounds that permeate behind them is gossamer thin and the fact that this membrane is never broken is testament to the skill involved in creating it. As a piece of work in its own right, “Mute Words” can be enjoyed from beginning to end, and never is there a sense that there are passages incorporated that may be considered extraneous..........