Coscia Cane

Finnr's Cane is an atmospheric black metal band from Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, founded in 2008. The band consists of The Peasant, The Slave, and The Bard, with each self-assigned pseudonym chosen to afford anonymity for the members…

In his liner notes to this album, philosopher/novelist Umberto Eco talks about Gianluigi Trovesi and Gianni Coscia revisiting Kurt Weill "in a musical drowse dominated by an almost oneiric principle of contamination." As you do. In plain English, Eco is suggesting that Trovesi and Coscia have approached the music as if in an eclectic, stream of subconsciousness daydream, interweaving Weill's compositions with their own and those of other simpatico composers. And he's spot on. Trovesi and Coscia appear to be in deep free association mode here, employing intuition and impressionism rather than literal historical reconstruction to celebrate Weill's singular and enduring legacy.

The virtuosic duo of multi-reedist Gianluigi Trovesi (performing here on clarinets) and accordionist Gianni Coscia makes its first ECM appearance with In cerca di cibo. Over the course of an affectionate hour, these two points of light join to create a binary star that shines in full spectrum. The album’s title means “In search of food,” thus indicating seeds sown and re-sown until they bear new fruit to nourish the ears. It also points to the music’s folk origins, glazed and fired to perfection.

This hugely enjoyable and highly inventive album is dedicated to the late Umberto Eco, a lifelong friend of accordionist Gianni Coscia and an ardent champion of this particular duo. Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loanna, a meditation on the nature of memory, inspires Trovesi and Coscia on their own nostalgic and exploratory journey, referencing music mentioned in the novel and free-associating upon its philosophical themes. As ever, the Italians cast a wide net, playing songs associated with Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller and George Formby, paraphrasing Janáček, dipping into movie music, and improvising most creatively while keeping their dedicatee in view. Repertoire revisits “Interludio”, a piece that Umberto Eco and Gianni Coscia collaborated on 70 years ago, and Gianluigi Trovesi crafts a new composition on the letters of Eco’s name. From multiple perspectives, a brilliant tribute.