STOP PRESS
Violeta Vicci and Bruno Bavota will play instore at Intense Records in Chelmsford on Friday, 5 June at 13:00.
What is a sign of good music? A memorable hook, remarkable playing, an objectively interesting melody? How about when a song becomes a mode of transportation? In this instance, we are Violeta Vicci and Bruno Bavota’s passengers. They manoeuvre their emotional brainchild, with ease, from the metaphysical plane to your lap.
Their debut LP, Be Human (Bigo & Twigetti), is a celebration of life and interacting with the world at large. Its materialisation was catalysed by a brief delay in their respective studio times, remedied by the most human of happenings – a conversation.
Violetta Vicci and Bruno Bavota
Accomplished creatives and musicians both, Violeta’s roots are in contemporary classical and electronica. She has toured with The Orb and System 7 and collaborated with household names such as Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Fontaines D.C. Vicci’s music celebrates her deep connection to nature, using natural soundscape recordings, layered strings, and immersive visuals.
Bruno is a composer and multi-instrumentalist blending ambient, modern classical, and experimental music. His compositions are marked by delicate melodies, intricate harmonies, and keen attention to detail. This approach is also evident in his work in the electronica duo Not Me But Us.
Be Human
Be Human delivers its introspective insights through tasteful piano progressions that accompany and elevate, swirling violins that strobe in the foreground, sometimes subtly, sometimes offbeat, perfectly peculiar and emotive. The album’s musical continuity has similarities but plenty of nuance. Throughout, vibrant bridges and verses perfectly explore the emotional frontier of the song, pushing it to its dénouement – the final resolution or untangling of the conflicts in a story.
Ambient music at its best
Ambient music, despite its conventional lack of words, is a remarkable storyteller, constructed by entirely human characteristics in both artist and listener. Vicci and Bavota make use of lived experience, inquisitiveness, and imagination to conjure (in myself, at least) wonderful fleeting images and feelings of antiquity, near and distant futures, humankind, beauty, and hopefulness. As well as solemnity, melancholy, and hopelessness, all entirely human binaries, relevant in our ‘Ever Changing World’.
At risk of over-extrapolating, songs ‘To The Stars’ into ‘Mowlem Street’ accentuate this binary so effectively. With no fool proof method to the proliferation of an equal, just, and mutually prosperous society, we can head ‘To The Stars’, a feat of human innovation, and ingenuity. However, back on ‘Mowlem Street’, at ground level, peoples remain within varying but increasingly disparate socio-economic states.
Perhaps something can be gained from the enjoyment and emotional insight of Be Human, if nothing else, it can help us become a little more human again
Reuben McCulloch
Final thoughts
Our dénouement as a people on Earth, as a civilisation, remains perpetually entangled within geo-political megalomania and a new realm of subjective truth. Ultimately, perhaps something can be gained from the enjoyment and emotional insight of Be Human, if nothing else, it can help us become a little more human again.
Violetta Vicci and Bruno Bavota tour dates
The duo embarks on a short promotional tour soon. Even Butterflies Makes A Sound is delighted to host them at The Essex Arms in Brentwood on 5 June. The incredible Masal support. Tickets available on DICE FM.
30 May: Just Dropped In, Coventry (with Marta Del Grandi)
31 May: Kanteena, Lancaster
1 June: Force Cafe & Terrace, Ambleside
3 June: SJQ (Servant Jazz Quarters), London
4 June: The Chapel, Nottingham
5 June: The Essex Arms, Brentwood (with Masal)
6 June: The Stables, Milton Keynes
10 Sept: St. Mary’s, Totnes
11 Sept: Market Hall 360 Dome, Plymouth
13 Sept: The Hall, Exeter
