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Reviews

Pietro Zollo — April
(Projekt ARC00301, 2023, DL)

Pietro Zollo — Fragmented Patterns
(Projekt ARC00318, 2024, DL)

Pietro Zollo — Abstraction
(Projekt ARC335, 2025, DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-03-23

April Cover artFragmented Patterns Cover artAbstraction Cover art

Pietro Zollo is a composer of ambient / electronic / drone / minimalist music from Italy with nearly a dozen albums to his credit, though the three under review here represent releases from 2023 to 2025 on the Projekt Archive label. April from 2025 contains exactly three cuts of exactly thirty minutes each, titled “Part 1,” Part 2,” and “Part 3,” though the three longform looping sections seem to come from very different spaces, related only by their concept, the first full of sparkly percussives and resonant beauty that might indicate the final end of the long winter season with its rain and regeneration of life, a cycle we can reliably count on every year. The second part opens to a gentle and dreamy passage of time, where the listener can imagine seeds germinating and the life sprouting up from the earth, where one can almost hear angelic voices from on high guiding the process forward, while the third part is a bit less pastoral and more direct, even muscular in parts, driving home a more overt melodic abstraction. Beautiful, gentle, mercurial, and dreamlike are all adjectives that faithfully describe what Zollo is putting forward as a composer, although the exact 30-minute time limit of each section comes off as artificial with no apparent reason, some parts seem too long, while part three could last a full 90 minutes by itself and I wouldn’t mind at all. Since they are all exactly the same duration, one has to wonder how it might sound if you played all three parts at the same time?

So what does Zollo have in his toolbox to create all these magnificent sounds? The secrets are not given, though I suspect we might be hearing loops and samples of various sounds, piano going forwards and backwards, perhaps synthesizers and software instruments as well, although most of what is heard resembles nothing that’s easily identifiable, all of which brings us to Zollo’s 2024 offering, Fragmented Patterns. Here, he presents eight tracks of varying lengths, again seemingly  built up from loops of sound of mysterious origin, creating a woven tapestry of beautiful textures that grow and blossom, though the overall feeling tends to be introspective and shimmeringly gentle, following soft structures that could suggest otherworldly moods and patterns, each piece bearing something wholly unique — a soft rhythmic element, colorful melodic elements, perhaps pure light and darkness swirled together into a blitz of starlight, one just needs to flow with it and go. In comparison to April, Fragmented Patterns seems more ambient and less of a minimalist exercise, though the deep reflections that capture the inward facing beauty and emotion of each of the eight pieces don’t need to be fully understood to be fully appreciated by the listener. Most of these just flow freely in any unexpected direction, although one piece in particular, “Imagination,” flows forward with a gentle cadence that’s subtle yet powerful. 

Abstraction is Zollo’s entry for 2025 released on February 18th, and not to be confused with his earlier 2022 album titled Geometric Abstractions. This time out we get ten tracks total with sounds that are occasionally recognizable, like an accordion sample on the second track, “Essential Transcendence,” mixed in with a plethora of other interesting sonic samples, though the spirit and feeling throughout is still very much the same: ambient. Again, much of what is here is rooted in repeating patterns and loops, created under a general veil of mystery, although in a general sense I find Abstraction much easier to like than the earlier two, and especially April. Perhaps it’s because emotion tends to flow more freely and visibly, and some of the cuts here, like “Mindful State” for example, have a bit of cadence from an endless repeating loop) while still remaining true to the ambient ideal. Something seeming to be processed church bells seem to be ringing through a mysterious sonic cloud (more looped fragments, of course) on the near-eight minute “Spaceless,” while the wandering loops of “Timeless” seem to be an aural kaleidoscope, following circular pathways around an imaginary galaxy. Again, April, Fragmented Patterns, and Abstraction are three creations that encompass many powerful ideas, and enthusiasts of the ambient-minimalist sound would do well to investigate them.

Filed under: New releases, 2023 releases, 2024 releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): Pietro Zollo

More info
http://projektrecords.bandcamp.com/album/abstraction
http://projektrecords.bandcamp.com/album/fragmented-patterns
http://projektrecords.bandcamp.com/album/april

 

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