Fredo Viola - The Turn
3/5
By: Matt Cole
In a lot of ways The Turn is the perfect title for Fredo Viola's debut album.
For example, just when you've got a handle on the layered, vocal harmonies resembling a medieval Beach Boys, spinning out some kind of Californian madrigal, Viola flips the form introducing analogue synths, glitchy vocal samples and fuzzy guitars.
'The Sad Song' was his viral calling card last year. It's one of those unlikely tunes that for some reason grabs the imagination of TV producers the world over and inevitably finds itself sound-tracking some cloying teenage awfulness like The OC.
And that's the real dichotomy at the heart of The Turn. It has the ability to surprise and delight like a darker Sufjan Stevens or more polished Conor Oberst on 'Puss' or 'Umbrellas'. On 'Death Of A Son' the sparse, clattering electronica echoes the satisfyingly uncomfortable listening of latter-day Bjork, similarly held together by crystal clear vocal acrobatics.
However Violas song-writing also has the habit of descending into the kind of quirky sugariness that's bound to see it caught up in a violent bidding war among Ad Agencies fighting it out to use 'Red States' on a mobile phone commercial.
Interestingly enough the accompanying DVD featuring 8 of Violas' 'Cluster Videos' gives some insight into the music itself. Each one of the works takes a Hextatic-like approach of using audio-visual samples of Viola performing individual vocal tracks then split-screens them together to create a whole piece. This approach gives The Turn its signature sound, whilst also hamstringing it somewhat. Although Viola's voice is engaging enough, there's only so much "bom-doodly-oodlying" one can take before it starts to grate.
The fact that Fredo himself resembles Jeremy Piven from Entourage is just enough to create an effective distraction. I've sat through this album several times so far and on each listen it provokes polarised reactions, from enchantment to severe irritation. At the risk of never actually finishing this review I may have to give it a couple more goes.
Artists in this article: Fredo Viola
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