Eager to emerge from the
“trance” and “lack of imagination” plaguing electric guitarists for the past
several decades, Corrado Rustici devoted six years to exploring sounds and
expansive musical contexts utilizing only the guitar as his field of
experimentation and expression. The imaginative results are the nine songs he
composed that together form “Aham,” an audacious collection of ambient fusion,
progressive jazz, ethereal rock, moody pop, and dramatic classical performed and
produced by Rustici set for release in the U.S. on July 15.
Rustici’s aural pursuit began in conjunction with a
spiritual quest, an existential search into his being, which conjointly led to
exploring the essential nature of his perception of music. Everything that you
hear on “Aham,” a Sanskrit word meaning “I am,” from what sounds like drums,
bass, strings, woodwinds and voice were created exclusively using electric and
acoustic guitars through analog pedals and digital plug-ins. The only exceptions
are two vocal tracks – one by Rustici on the poetic confessional “The Guilty
Thread” and another featuring the soulful tenor voice of Andrew Strong (“The
Commitments”) on the fantastical adventure “Alcove Of Stars” – and handclaps on
the meandering balladic sojourn “The Last Light Spoken.” The artist did not use
synthesizers, samplers or electronic instruments anywhere on the album.
“When I started to write the music for this album, I wanted
to find out how far this wonderful instrument and I could go. During six years
of work and experimentation, I’ve been incredibly surprised by the guitar’s
versatility and sonic capabilities , which have been seldom used or almost
totally ignored up to this point. The deeper I went, I became more and more
enthused and excited about the little and big secrets that the instrument kept
revealing to me. The way in which the music was conceived and produced created
some limitations, constrictions and a distinctive sonic palette, all of which
contributed to the overall sound and mood of the album. I hope that after six
years of R&D, I was able to create a musical space within which one can
hear the first baby cry of what I like to call the ‘Transmodern Guitar,’” said
Rustici, who as a byproduct of his work on “Aham” is designing and developing a
couple of guitar pedals with DV Mark that will be unvieled in January 2017 at
the NAMM Show.
To Rustici, it was important that the songs on “Aham,”
including the epic two-part title track opus, connect with listeners meaningfully
and are capable of shining on their own merits, and do not simply become guitar
demos for his revolutionary techniques and ingenuity.
“I was absolutely not interested in recording a ‘shredder’
project. In the end, it’s not important how we construct a piece of music, but
only if and in which way a musician is capable of creating that emotional and –
always virtual - space within which both the artist and the listener find a way
to share the joy, the pain and the very reason for our ‘Existence.’”
The Naples, Italy native will perform music from “Aham” on
home soil in November in support of the album, which Sony Classical is
releasing in that territory next month. After leading his own band (Nova) in
the mid-to-late 1970s, which included collaborations with Phil Collins and
hit-maker Narada Michael Walden, Rustici relocated to California and has been a
San Francisco resident since 1978. As an award-winning producer, Rustici helped
craft a library of No. 1 Billboard singles in Europe and multi-million selling
albums working with global superstars such as Zucherro, Paul Young and Luciano Pavorotti. In 2007, he became the
first producer to simultaneously occupy the top 3 spots on the Nielsen chart
with three different artists (Ligabue, Negramaro and Renga). Over the years,
his passion for sonic innovation has resulted in unearthing now widely accepted
and used production methods such as Push & Pull, which combines the
irreverent approach of rock and pop with the softer and more evocative effect
of ambient music. As a solo artist, his previous releases are “Deconstruction
Of A Postmodern Musician" (2007) and “Blaze & Bloom: Live In Japan”
(2014), the latter of which was also issued as a DVD.
Rustici’s “Aham” contains the following songs:
“As Dark Bleeds Light”
“Ananda’s First Steps”
“The Duke And The Hare”
“The Guilty Thread”
“Roots Of Progression”
“Alcove Of Stars”
“The Last Light Spoken”
AHAM Suite:
Part 1: “The Enquiry”
Part 2: “Aham”
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