The Child Of A Creek is the solo project of Lorenzo Bracaloni, a musician active with this moniker since 2004 and with a rather consistent number of works to his credit. On this occasion we are talking about two releases at close range, one in CD format for the French label Ruralfaune, and the other spread only on cassette by the Danish label Metaphysical Circuits: works that show two faces, if not different, at least distinguishable in approach and formula adopted. In fact, if in Quiet Swamps Lorenzo ventures into territories contiguous to neo folk, alternating instrumental tracks to others in which he uses his voice with good mastery, in Hidden Tales And Other Lullabies he offers us a convincing interpretation of an ambient with airy and melancholic traits. The first work, much longer, highlights a not indifferent compositional talent, with the musician who descends on the treacherous terrain of neo folk, but leaving aside assorted intellectualisms to focus on a song form often of rare effectiveness, as in the evocative title track, in Subterraean Life (very close to Duncan Evans’ moods in Lodestone), in the dark At Morning Or At Dusk and in the moving The Owl And The Moon; there is no lack of good instrumental tracks, such as the more ambient The Ravine and the worthy closing of the work represented by Lost Horizons, but overall the contribution of the voice, in this context, turns out to be an added value despite Lorenzo is not an excellent vocalist, although absolutely adequate compared to the average of those who engage in the genre. The second of the two releases that we take into consideration is instead a short but successful example of ambient that, meanwhile, denotes the enormous and far from obvious merit of never tedious the listener, thanks to a first-rate melodic research, as well as an exemplary executive cleanliness, placing itself at the antipodes of certain mannerist minimalism in which, not infrequently, we come across in similar situations. I do not exclude that one of the reasons why these six tracks have really impressed me was, above all, their ability to bring me back pleasantly to a golden age for these sounds such as the ’80s, reminding me of vinyl that I have guiltily left to get dusty, in recent decades, as Bill Nelson’s Map Of Dreams or Gone To Earth (the second disc entirely instrumental) by David Sylvian, it is certain that tracks like Daughter Of Fortune or Sandman’s Dream turn out to be in all respects small jewels. Both decidedly successful, the two operations weblog The Child Of A Creek finally turn out to be complementary and above all, revealing an uncommon talent like that of Lorenzo Bracaloni, for which there is only to hope that he will succeed, in the future, to gain further space in a prestigious scene, albeit niche, as the ambient neofolk.

2014 – Ruralfaune / Metaphysical Circuits