Album Notes

About Ombra

Another compelling release from the seriously talented but little known composer/producer Pia Silvi. On Virtually Handsewn she wowed us with her incredible virtuosity using that beautiful voice of hers and the trademark wonderfully layered sounds using a mix of virtual as well as real instruments, and it's still difficult to tell the difference between the real or the virtual because of the way she does what she does.

On Ombra once again Pia Silvi takes us with her on another amazing journey. This time her voice is even more in the foreground and tracks like Marina, Qui Primum and Fragmenting are quite simply brilliant, whilst Histories, Hand On Heart and Song For The Moon (With Cello) catch you unawares with their simplicity and raw truths. The cello on Song For The Moon has a unique quality, it sounds almost as if it's under water somehow. Every track on the album seems to be in the right place giving you enough time to pause between tracks to reflect on them before you are taken somewhere else by the next one.

About Pia Silvi's Music

This artist is very eclectic making for a fascinating journey. She combines songs as well as instrumental pieces on her albums. At times you hear the influences she draws on - which are themselves extraordinary for their diversity - at no time however are you left thinking that's like .........because it's just not.

Pia Silvi has a way of composing sounds that are very original and creative. She positions a range of instruments with electronic sounds to create gorgeous textures adding sound effects with sweeping strings or melancholy bows, fragmented piano, organ, harp, unusual beats. Then there is that beautiful voice of hers perfectly measured and poised. She can do amazing things with that voice too, whether it's singing solo, or as a choir, doing layered harmonies, singing the top notes or the middle and lower notes - listen especially to the richness of her voice on Fragmenting and Hand On Heart. It's stunning to think the whole album is composed, performed and produced by one person.

There's more lyrics on Ombra than anything she has previously done. She writes about unusual things in an unusual way; more often than not her songs are very sad, but she is never sentimental. She has the ability to write very sensitively about difficult issues. But the songs, though clearly about specific things, enable you to totally connect them to your own world.

There's the physical and the metaphysical in her work; listen to the lyrics on Broken Head But All Mended Now, Histories and Fragmenting. She has a way of mixing metaphor with very plain language to make her musical poems. Her music can be both complex and simple, understated but profound, quietly powerful and moving, charming, inventive, mysterious, eerie, inspired and inspirational, and always true to herself. Her music is very distinctive, full of atmosphere and beauty and it becomes more so with each album.

There's an intimate and natural understanding of the language of music here, it is cinematic, visual and atmospheric. It's there most obviously in the subtle details of each track but especially in Fragmenting where she uses simple piano notes that appear isolated and alone to signify the almost palpable pain in the song. It's there too in Adagio For A Rainy Day when the trumpet enters the piece like a lament, and again in A Moon For Venus (beautiful title!) when you hear the harp for the first time, and also in Qui Primum as the bell at the beginning almost summons you to listen closer before the distant singing voices become audible.

Listen to the brilliantly titled Winterlude with its fragile voices and shimmering sounds used to suggest the wintry landscape of the woodland that inspired the piece. Hear the vulnerability in her voice as she sings the haunting words in Histories 'We're Following On' just so beautifully simple; and the power of this song is in its simplicity.

This understanding of the language of music was there in her debut album and with each subsequent release she has become increasingly fluent in this language as she continues to evolve. It's very exciting listening to a new Pia Silvi release because you know you are going to be enthralled.

So here it is another very special album from a special artist who really really should be more widely known. She continues to work alone in her lovely woodland studio where she is close to the natural world which she describes as essential to her being and where there's a lot of space to think and work. She says that it's a place where it would be impossible not to be creative.

This is real craftswomanship and it is a very wonderful thing.