“[…] This is not the kind of music that forces itself upon the listener but is relatively low in volume. Using quite some time on a fade-in and a fade-out also creates some good headspace, and for me, this is not a cassette of eight pieces of music but two pieces (or one, if you play the digital version) of music with gaps of silence. Minimal variation enhances this idea further. Altogether this is a very consistent release and a true beauty!”

Unlike when he was a member of the Italian laptop trio Tu M', solo works by Emiliano Romanelli are pretty rare. This is the fourth one since quitting Tu M', and I believe I reviewed them all (Vital Weekly 1200, 1034 and 926). This new cassette is the second volume in the 'Tabulatura' series, of which the first was reviewed in Vital Weekly 1034. I copied the basic information from that review, which is a composition from 2008 that uses 'sixteen pre-recorded guitar parts and a computer with custom software. It is conceived as a system to generate different electro-acoustic patterns', which are recorded, live without overdubs".
The eight patterns on 'Volume 2', as Romanelli calls them, were recorded live in November 2020. I gather he numbers his patterns in a sequence and is now up to #201 to #208. Each segment is precisely five, three, six etc., minutes. Oddly enough, in my previous review, I recounted that I nap at 16:00, but today was a bit earlier, primarily due to the heat. I fell asleep earlier, but it had the same effect.
These lovely dark drones are like sound streams, moving slowly and majestic in and out of your space. The guitar element of the music is no longer present, there is just the digital drone, and that's it, but it is more than enough. This is not the kind of music that forces itself upon the listener but is relatively low in volume (and I believe the composer intends to keep it that way, which means there is space for the listener to amplify something or fiddle with the frequency range on your amplifier). Using quite some time on a fade-in and a fade-out also creates some good headspace, and for me, this is not a cassette of eight pieces of music but two pieces (or one, if you play the digital version) of music with gaps of silence. Minimal variation enhances this idea further. Altogether this is a very consistent release and a true beauty!
— Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

“[…] inside a cloud of sound.”

Romanelli is an Italian painter/composer who has worked in a few different styles. Never heard the first volume of this project, but the new one is based on running an acoustic guitar through a computer to generate patterned drones. The eight pieces have variable underlying rhythm structures of a sort, but a lot of it is like wagging your head inside a cloud of sound.
— Byron Coley, The Wire