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Cecilia Amici Bluviola Review by Gary Hill This is intriguing and very artistic music. At its heart it's mostly electronic, but there are definite symphonic things here. Comparisons to new age music are sometimes appropriate. On the other hand, this is not far removed from things like Bjork and Kate Bush. A few of the songs are in Italian, but most are in English. All in all, this is a diverse and dynamic set that really is quite tasty. Cecilia Amici is an artist you really should give a chance. This review is available in book (paperback and hardcover) form in Music Street Journal: 2018 Volume 4. More information and purchase links can be found at: garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2018.

Track by Track Review

Cornucopia The sound of a gentle storm open this. Other elements of "found sound" quality come into the mix. Some creepy music emerges from there. Then more of a mainstream electronic music sound takes over to serve as the background for the vocals. This resembles a kind of merging of new age, folk prog and other things.

Starship This is another electronic bit of music. It's a bit weird in some ways. There are symphonic vibes here. It has soaring and mellower movements. At times this drifts into some music that almost sounds like it would fit in a horror or science fiction movie soundtrack.

Rainbows While this cut isn't a huge change, it gets into some seriously spacey, trippy stuff further down the road.

Nero All'orizzonte The lyrics to this one are in Italian. There is cool dancing kind of electronic vibe to a lot of this. There is a bit of a symphonic element to a lot of it. I love the balance between the more dropped back movement and the more powered up one. The flute brings a lot to the proceedings, too.

Hello, I Love You Yes, this is a cover of the Doors song. It's a cool electronic based rendition that calls to mind both Kate Bush and Bjork. It gets into a more hard rocking vibe later in the track. I've always said that if you are going to do someone else's song you should make it your own. Amici certainly does that here. There are some cool proggy elements in some of the layers that come over the top of this later.

Jòga The backing vocals on this have a chorale vibe to them. The cut is on the mellower end of the spectrum. There is a definite symphonic side to this piece.

Aem A mellower number, this has an intriguing world music texture later in the piece. In fact, this has so much world music built into it that it's the driving factor. This is also one of the proggiest things here. It's my favorite cut. It has such cool shifts and changes. I love the world percussion on this thing.

Bluviola Piano, electronics and a bit of a symphonic vibe drive this cut at the beginning. It grows outward toward the territory of some of the more electronic Kate Bush stuff. This gets a bit noisy (in a tasteful way) and more rocking further down the road. It's definitely cool stuff.

Wings of a Butterfly Coming in rather symphonic and textural, this gets into more pure electronic territory from there. Piano creates some melodic elements as the vocals join. It gets into more powered up and rocking stuff further down the road.

Vento Another of several songs here in Italian, this is a pretty cut that really has some intriguing musical elements and sounds. It's quite classical in nature in a lot of ways. There is some killer synthesizer soloing, though, bringing it more into the rock zone.

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