On Alpine Variations, Venetian-based composer, guitarist, and field recorder Enrico Coniglio treks towards an ambient apex. The peak of the mountain glimmers from afar, slowly revealing its crystalline beauty the closer he gets. On this strikingly-sublime record, Coniglio’s ambient music is able to dissipate any remaining clouds to uncover a majestic sight. The ascent is long, but it is clearly worth the journey.
The euphoria of reaching the top, the victory that comes with the conquest, is contained within its vapours of ambient. On top of that, there is an amazing sense of scale, along with a deep respect for the mountain. It is also a sharp reminder of one’s mortality.
Atmosphere and the environment are placed like a flag at the tip of the music, which becomes increasingly icy and frost-bitten, and its dull, gleaming harmonies produce a lambent light.
Coniglio has been advancing along these musical paths for years, exploring the sounds of the Earth and transcribing their vibrations; the care behind the music, along with its attention to detail, immediately shines through. It is clear that he has a love for the mountains. Although they are imposing, dominating the landscape and knifing through the sky, the music is more in line with awe than fear, although there is a healthy dose of that, too. Each piece climbs closer to the top, the ascent marked in stages, like checkpoints along the way, and the music is forever building on its foundations, although its footsteps are quick to disappear in the snow.
Dense textures and thin ambient winds whistle along the mountain, which is evocative of a spiritual and mental journey as much as it is a physical one. Endurance is essential if one wishes to reach the tip of the peak, and there is something of an inner fight, a push to continue on, to never give up, encased within the ambient textures. The continual shifts of its ice and the thunders of a distant avalanche are a reminder of its constant danger.
Like the mountain itself, it is breath-taking music, equally calming and spectacular.