Light continues to be at the center of the music of Pitchtorch, an alt-folk trio formed by members of The Gutbuckets, Guano Padano and The Vickers. “Light is something to strive for. Its rays are also made of sounds. The sounds that we try to follow in the midst of what seems more and more like an apocalyptic scenario“. I Can See The Light From Here, the new and second album by the Italian band, out today February 3rd, 2023, self-produced with distribution by IRD, following the homonymous debut of 2019.
“Pitchtorch is the ideal fusion of two words – pitchfork and pitch torch – and represents music as a light that can guide you through these dark times, not just musically speaking. Pitchtorch is a tuning fork but it’s also a lantern that marks the path to be taken”. A tuning fork, a torch that radiates bright sounds. This is in the Pitchtorch logo, made by Nazario Graziano. Pitchtorch is the project that “tunes” together three musicians – based between Florence and Milan – with relevant and different experiences: guitarist, composer and session player Mario Evangelista (The Gutbuckets, as well as international producer and author of music fort short films and commercials), bassist and double bass player Danilo Gallo (Guano Padano, Dark Dry Tears) and drummer Marco Biagiotti (The Vickers, L’Albero).
If the previous full length was more cinematic and introspective in questioning the origin of certain problems, I Can See The Light From Here is an album that talks about solutions, or at least about acceptance, with an even ironic vein and a more decisive focus on the song-form. Here reigns a spacious classic rock tinged with Americana and West Coast, psychedelia, blues and jazz, recalling the influences of The Allman Brothers Band, Calexico and Wilco among others.
First single Jack Of All Trades is an immediate shot. According to Evangelista: “Referring to the English rhetorical figure ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’, Jack Of All Trades reflects the typical situation of today’s musician, who has to do everything to be able to play and, in the end, neglects the music itself due to multitasking needs and the presence in the media world“.
This time there are also some guests, starting with Joachim Cooder (son of the legendary Ry) on the mbira – an African metallophone modified in a modern version – in the new single Ask The Dust, a song dedicated to the literary masterpiece of John Fante. To continue with Beppe Scardino (C’Mon Tigre, Calibro 35) on baritone sax in That’s Our Blues and Francesco Bigoni on clarinet in Flying Ants.
The album it’s been recorded the old school way, by three musicians who played live in the same room, with little overdubs here and there, under the supervision of Antonio Castiello and Aldo De Sanctis in the Jambona Lab Studio in Livorno. Although the songwriting remains by Evangelista, the arrangement process took place with a more collective approach than in the recent past.
However, each of the ten new songs shows its own structure, including the improvisation in the rehearsal room of Downtown Livorno and the instrumental title track, placed at the end of the tracklist. As we said, I Can See The Light From Here is pervaded by the reassuring warmth of light and many shades of orange, also present in the abstract cover made by Xenophilius. “The power of light can be found both in the suggestive power of a sunset and in our personal conception of sound“.
