Photo: Leonardo Calvano
Info: Indian Wells, producer Pietro Iannuzzi from southern Italy, is set to release his third album ‘Where The World Ends’ via LA based Friends Of Friends on 8th September 2017. Across a range of artfully composed, emotive electronic music, ‘Where The World Ends’ channels feelings of geographical, social and political isolation formed from borders both ageless and imposed. From ‘Voices’ opening soundscape, the heavenly techno of ‘Cascades’, the melodic peaks of ‘The Alps’ and the soaring title track; ‘Where The World Ends’ is in turns ebullient and melancholic, compelling and hypnotic. Choirs of wordless vocals provide a universal element of communication throughout; breaking down barriers of language, creating connections, crossing borders.
Italian ambient electronic artist Indian Wells released his third studio album since 2012, Where The World Ends, yesterday. Opener 'Voices' sets the tone of what is to come, understated yet absorbing instrumental atmospherics glide along a darkened highway, widening their exploratory expanse as the track unfolds. Although Iannuzzi's album is themed around the world we inhabit, it could just as easily be off-planet and away in the deep cosmos.
Lead single 'Cascades' feels brighter and more hopeful, fast rippling electronic effects sound almost mono, techno clicks snap into gear shortly afterwards and then we are motoring at full speed ahead, once again Indian Wells evokes a the feeling of us journeying through a dimly lit passageway, both real and imagined, it's gorgeously euphoric.
Indian Wells - Where The World Ends (Album Trailer)
'Forest Hills' has a chaotic carnival sound, like a stuttering interpretation of a 90's deep house track, its jerking motion eventually enveloped by swirl of sharp electro beats and samples. When the dark synth enters the fray at the 2 minute mark the vibe is almost complete, but there is still time for more layers as Wells stacks more and more sonic wonder on top of each other.
After the foreboding 'Some Stripes', which articulates the desolation Wells aims for so well, we encounter the retro-gaming glitch pound of 'Heart of Lights', another well-constructed segment on Where The World Ends, it acts as a defiant warning, determined not to submit to the chaos it perceives to be all-encompassing, a true highlight on the album. It's fitting that we have a track titled 'The Alps' on this LP, a stunning mountainous mass that traverses those boundaries and borders Wells alludes to in his album description, viewed from multiple nations, but never looking the same from any one of them.
As we reach album's end, so we reach the title-track, a twinkling and vibrant experience, a quiet nod to the erratic synchronicity of the likes of Four Tet, on the one hand it conjures feelings of helplessness, and on the other it raises a powerful spectre of defiance, a fight that can and will be won. Closing with 'Parola', a word which can be interpreted in many ways, from the Latin parabola or parable in English, it also means truth, honour and in mathematical terms it is the conic intersection, a parallel plane, the latter of which probably fits the thematic nature of the album best.
Where The World Ends is everything you want from an ambient electronic album, escapist, with or without knowledge of the artists intentions, it has meaning, both provided and interpreted by the listener themselves, which is some feat when we are dealing almost entirely in instrumental music. None of this has much significance however unless the music itself has the capacity to move you and leave its mark, Indian Wells has achieved all of these things on his latest album.
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