Andrée Burelli Builds Elegant Ambience with Classical Tinges

by delarue

Keyboardist Andrée Burelli writes drifting, hypnotic ambient music with pensive, sometimes distinctly dark neoromantic themes. Her album De Sidera- streaming at Bandcamp – is a good choice for meditation, multitasking to a pleasant backdrop, or drifting away in a cloud of bluish smoke on a rainy weekend afternoon.

As she sees it, the first track, Mediterraneo, is a sad place, portrayed by loopy, stark piano awash in echo and spiced with frequent splashes up against the shore. Those, in turn, eventually waft through the echo patch, a recurrent device here.

In the title piece, Burelli positions a distant, spare bassline amid washes of sound, raising the energy with her wordless, melismatically Balkan-tinged vocals.

Ultimi Raggi has what sounds like mutedly flaring guitar amid the swirl and the occasional shooting star falling to earth. In Pezzi Sopra La Tua Pelle is a sunny, slowly uwinding, Eno-ish tune, followed by the cheery miniature Aquilone Perduto, an evocation of birdsong.

Burelli’s airy vocals raise Cum Sidera out of desolation and suspense, then she brings back the spare, elegant piano in Natura Domina. She winds up the record with Cuore Di Piume, a sort of baroque chorale study in wave motion, and the windswept, pensive Leggeri Come Cenere.