argento: miraggi
Francisco Espregueira
Argento is a new project from composer and producer David August, whose work has moved between club music, live instrumentation and more experimental forms over the years. With Miraggi, released by Music From Memory, he turns towards the Mediterranean and the places that shaped his connection to Italy. Written between Berlin and the Tuscan coast, the album draws on Italian library music from the 1970s and ’80s, with traces of jazz fusion and Balearic music sitting further in the background. The result is less about recreating a particular era than building a sense of place. Synths, electronic textures, environmental recordings and acoustic percussion all have their own space.
Percussionist Lorenzo Setti becomes an important part of that process, bringing a more physical element to August’s arrangements through improvisation and co-writing. Across tracks such as “Vento Del Sud”, “Sabbia Su Sabbia” and “Ritmi Marini”, rhythms move gently beneath synth lines and small environmental details, giving the album a sense of motion without pushing it towards the dancefloor. The title Miraggi points to something equally elusive: a place remembered, imagined or perhaps never fully experienced. It makes sense for an album that sits somewhere between soundtrack, daydream and travel memory, where the sea and landscape are less subjects than part of the music itself. Available on vinyl.