Review Summary: As smooth as porcelain; as flowing as a raft on river.
Strange Weekend, from what I can work out, is not an album about those 2 treasured days at the end of 5, nor is it particularly strange. Mauro Remiddi’s androgynous hum is best absorbed rather than listened to – his soft tone more intact for reasons of texture rather than phonetics. It’s not his words that matter but rather the sound he makes saying them; not too dissimilar an idea to what the music on offer stands for. What
Strange Weekend is, then, is an extremely lush, mellifluous trickle of restrained dream-pop – a gentle wave of sound to seep into the airwaves between you and your headphones, and transport you into a certain state of mind in the process.
The pulsing soft-ripple of electronic vibration on opener ‘Drifting In & Out’ sets the scene but is quickly demonstrated to be not the binding precedent, as the gauzy, watered-down psychedelica of ‘Shapeless & Gone’ and the hazy, twitching kinetics of ‘Is It Too Deep For You?’ are cautiously quick to make clear.
Strange Weekend rolls by, taking in various shades of slumber-ridden mist with a set-list that manages to flow on one level yet find so many way to express its intent. There’s synthesisers that flutter and collapse into tweaked drum-machine rhythms; achingly lush guitars that strike in like a beam of warm morning sunlight before fading into the scenery; and, consistently, a sense that
Strange Weekend has one gorgeous trick up its sleeve but a multitude of ways to captivate its audience.
It’s this musical intelligence; this mature craftsmanship; this natural, unforced type of sound that subtly and gradually begins to shine as one holds
Strange Weekend closer to heart each listen; making it a contender not just for album of the month, but worthy of inclusion on end of year lists. Mauro Remiddi has crafted a splendid debut that truly seems more rewarding every listen, and magnificently, proves to be both restrained and cohesive but potentially single-worthy, with alternative dream-pop should-be hits like ‘Unless You Speak From Your Heart’. Intimate, spellbinding, consistent, cohesive and just damn pretty;
Strange Weekend is one of those albums that comes out of nowhere and awes – but tragically so, if an audience is failed to be reached due to its unobtrusive manner. Speaking from my heart (call this a pun?), I implore you to go and discover just what Remiddi’s weekend has to offer.
