Coti

"Dunung" (CD) March 2008 Antifrost |afro2042|

VITAL WEEKLY (NL) Antifrost's catalogue is in general filled with music that is sometimes best described as 'difficult', even 'noise', 'conceptual', but hardly ever as 'easy listening'. Coti, who before was one half of Textu Rizer with Nikos Veliotis, just releases 'Dunung' which is one hell of a break with that. Coti, real name Costantino Luca Rolando Kiriakos, born in Milan 1966, but living in Greece, was active since the mid 80s with bands as Ricochet, Dada Data, Raw, Spiders' Web, In Trance 95 and worked with Tuxedomoon, Stereo Nova, Blaine Reininger, The Raining Pleasure, Nikos Veliotis and ILIOS to but a few. On his fifth solo CD he offers music for the piano. Simple as that. No concept, well not other than playing the 86 keys and a bit of electronic treatment, like a bit of reverb, processing but it's kept a strict minimum. Playing the piano is what counts here. Coti plays minimalist patterns, not unlike old Steve Reich, not always with a similar clarity, but a bit muffled through the use sparse of sound effects. It entirely fits the current wave of people playing the piano that were so dominant in 2007. If you like your Sakamoto, Harold Budd, Steve Reich or Erik Satie like than this is right your alley. I thought it was a bit much for the similarity the work had to offer, but as 'music while you work' this did a pretty fine job. (FdW)