| 120th album released by Ambiances Magnétiques, "Carré de sable" (Sandbox) introduces Guido Del Fabbro as a solo artist. It is a mixture of sound environments and instrumental pieces combining composition and multitracked improvisation.
A suite of 19 short pieces in which rhythms mechanically come to life through the progressive accretion of electronic and acoustic elements. Noises, sounds and world music-influenced melodies intermingle. A kind of magic taking us to the heart of Guido Del Fabbro’s wild universe. On this album, the young composer and musician reveals himself as a promising jack-of-all-trades. In addition to his faithful violin, Del Fabbro plays a wide array of instruments and objects, including guitar (acoustic, electric, prepared), mandolin, banjo, recorder, living-room organ, turntable, and coffeepot. What was the young musician’s philosophy for this album? "To play with very simple elements, just like a child in a sandbox."
A violinist since the age of four, Guido Del Fabbro first showed an interest in composition and improvisation in 1990 - he was only ten years old. A member of the Fanfare Pourpour and the group Rouge Ciel, he also appears on the DAME production "Sang 9" with the group Concorde Crash. Only 23 years old, this composer already has an impressive track record and is promised to a brilliant career. Highly recommended.
REVIEW:
by D M
in Vital #416 (The Netherlands), March 23, 2004
Carré de sable is the hard to classify debut of Guido del Fabbro. Fabbro (1980) is a violonist and composer from Montreal. Interested in both improvised and written music he gathered his experience in groups like Fanfare Pourpour, L'Hotel du boût de la terre, and Rouge Ciel. On his first solo effort sound experiments and instrumental pieces succeed each other. Both of them are nor extremely experimental nor plainly conventional. But his music fits perfectly with the esthetics of the Ambiances Magnétiques label. Throughout the album Del Fabbro plays violin and a great diversity of instruments: violins, guitars, mandoline, harmonica, flutes, and many more. He is helped by Marie-Claude Lamoureux on voice in two tracks and Pierre-Emmanuel Poizat on bass clarinet also on two tracks. With Carré de sable he composed a multitracked work that is a pleasure to listen to. Folky dance tunes and abstract sound experiments succeed each other, and go wonderfully hand in hand. Del Fabbro explains, “This collection of hotel chamber music pieces is the soundtrack to the time taken to create personal ecosystems & to have fun with very simple materials, like a child in a sandbox” |