Strata-gemma - Radamanto (2023)

Strata-Gemma, the musical project that masterfully blends jazz and electronic music, led by DJ and record producer Niccolò Bruni and musicians Luca Cacciatore (Winds) and Andrea Moretti (Bass), lands for the first time on Simona Faraone's label, New Interplanetary Melodies, with their third album: Radamanto.
Radamanto, is a Cretan demigod, son of Zeus, venerated as a wise lawgiver as well as lord of the netherworld within classical mythology. And in this album we find several otherworldly atmospheres, starting with the album's intro, Mind Excursus of the Thinking Planet (A1), a foggy Ambient Jazz track featuring Federico Bologna (Technogod / The Caribbean House) on synth.
The fog clears slightly with Space Faun (A2), more than five minutes of crooked but incredibly evocative Jazz, characterized by a tasty Live feeling and an obsessive bass line. While with Meteor to Nowhere (A3) the colours are tinged with a touch of black coming straight from the 1980s of the more experimental No Wave à la James Chance.
With Astrea (A4), the air becomes rarefied and dreamy again, with a hint of nostalgia, marked by the notes of Luca Cacciatore's saxophone that recalls, in a more acid version, Miles Davis of "Ascenseur pour l'échafaud", the movie by Luoise Malle.
Side A of the album closes with Capitolium (A5) a Jazzy-ritual house track that immediately takes you among the priestesses of ancient Crete, in which we find Federico Bologna on Synth again.
The B-side opens with the mysterious and classy EIAR (B1) solid down-tempo with cinematic echoes made with the collaboration of Max Paparella Organization. The side continues with Radamanto (B2), the title track that probably sums up the essence of the album, in which we find, together with Bologna's synths, many of the elements scattered throughout most of the album as well as highlighting the band's more psychedelic side.
With the jazz-funk of Complex Tv Soul (B3), Strata Gemma make us realise that they could easily be part of the new English cool scene, but with the album's closing track, Morton Club Affair (B4), the flavour returns smoky and dense, elegant but creepy at the same time like a David Lynch' movie.

Radamanto is a beautiful album, crooked, dense and vibrant, within which Jazz, Psychedelia, experimental electronics and more elegantly merge for a nocturnal journey full of smoky suggestions.