Chance Risiko: Sleep Talking

Chance Risiko are a young Italian quartet and have just released their debut album Sleep Talking for our listening pleasure. Overall, the music presented is very mellow with the occasional foray into harsher territory mostly in the form of disharmonious melodies and experimental guitar and effects. This is an album full of soft atmospheres and textures with lush melodies that makes for a relaxing listen. If you are looking for party music look elsewhere as you will not find that here. What you will find are eleven tracks of dreamy art pop that gently delve occasionally in experimentalism and avant-garde. Acoustic and electric guitars are used prominently with the playing being quite subdued. Synthesizers, keyboards and effects give the music an ethereal quality, very lush and textured. Violins and cello are also added to many tracks adding more layers to the already rich sound.

The music on Sleep Talking does bear a certain resemblance to bands like the Art Bears in that there is a quirkiness here with some songs having an experimental edge. Mostly though, I hear bands such as Radiohead, particularly in the use of electronics and in the lead vocals of Paolo D'Alonzo. He has a pleasing voice with nary an accent I can detect and a laid back delivery that suits the mellowness of the music.

"Sleep Talking" starts things off with a lush sound that is a common thread throughout these compositions. The addition of cello, courtesy of Tommaso Tesihi, adds a richness to the sound. "Monday Morning Motivation" has a slightly somber melody with gentle singing and acoustic guitars recalling Radiohead at their best. Slightly more dissonant is the instrumental "Oompa Loompa" beginning with strange keyboard effects and leading to choppy guitar rhythms and a driving beat. This is avant-garde pop at its finest. A serene melody begins "What's Wrong With Salamanders" before the atmospherics build up and bursts of trumpet interrupt jarring guitar chords. The ambient orchestrations of "My Plastic Jaw" are quite lovely with waves of synths and electronics hinting of Vangelis. This is the only song without guitar but does not suffer in the slightest.

All the songs are in the two to six minute range so they are never long enough for redundancy to creep in. If you like your pop dipped in dreaminess with the odd bit of disharmony entering the fold you would do well to make Sleep Talking your next acquaintance.

Track Listing:
1. Sleep Talking
2. Beating A Dead Horse
3. Monday Morning Motivation
4. Dead End
5. Oompa Loompa
6. Whats Wrong With Salamanders
7. 30/03/07
8. Active Life
9. My Plastic Jaw
10. radiations
11. Aus Tokio

Added: December 6th 2009
Reviewer: Jon Neudorf
Score:
Related Link: Altrock Productions
Hits: 2934
Language: english

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