LUCA CALABRESI – I SHIN DEN SHIN (Moon June/ Bandcamp) (2024) (2 x LP/ CD/ DL)

Communication transcending speech: “what the mind thinks, the heart transmits”, with roots in Zen Buddhism and ‘Confucionism’, this is the ‘raison d’être for the music if Luca Calabresi. The emotional resonance referred to in the notes is present in largesse on six pieces totalling over 60 minutes, the melody delivered by Calabresi’s pocket trumpet. There is nothing complex about the music, a single bass note, presumably played on guitar (There are four such players: Nguyén Lê and Mark Wingfield on electric guitar and Alexander Dowerk and Markus Reuter on touch guitars) underpinning the meditative opener ‘Dissolution’. A good example of the effectiveness of Reuter’s haunting soundscapes can be heard alongside Calabresi’s thoughtful thematic trumpet improvisations on ‘Appointment with the Truth’, and on ‘A New Reality’ one can imagine a lotus flower opening into more haunting trumpet cadences. The tone is set for an album of peaceful, life affirming music, with a commendable job in the arrangement and production by Markus Reuter.