Brand new solo release for guitarist Nicola Ratti with his languid, disarming sound of small and gentle gestures and loping rhythms, often repeated and subtly shifting in an impressionistic vision founded on traditional elements. Merging guitar, piano and double bass with percussion, environmental sounds and occasional voice, Nicola constructs songs that by turns float, swell and envelop in magnetic fashion. A piercing tenderness remains at the core of his work, though on Ode there is a more expansive palette at play for something that approaches a pure sense of grace in the sense of space and suspended atmosphere created.
It’s an ingratiating, personal language Nicola has been quietly developing, reaching the point with Ode where it’s blossomed into something truly special.
