City Paper online music (2007)
02-06-2008
Though named in sly homage to noted singer, heroin aficionado, and serial monogamist Nico, Pfangen's free-associative acoustic improvisations bear little (if any) resemblance to the German chanteuse's music. Instead, the duo of Mattia Coletti and Andrea Belfi use the whole of Watch Me Getting Back the End to pursue a stereophonic guitar, percussion, and vocal interplay that mixes scattershot drumming with carefully plucked strings and intertwined voices, emerging as a more melodic, electronics-addled analogue to classic European improv. Favoring spry instrumental figures that coalesce into graceful layers, tracks like "I'm Leaving" explore gentle harmonics on top of undulating guitar washes and fluid percussion fills, while "Tiding Up, Getting Out" mines ramshackle drum-kit hits and scraping strings. Each track evidences a different approach, alternating between foregrounded percussion and effervescent guitar drones. Melody, however, forms the common backbone throughout the whole album, pinning free-ranging excursions to simple note patterns and warm motifs that anchor Coletti and Belfi's work in the familiar and genteel. Michael Crumsho
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Andrea Belfi
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