Un'altra Forma by Ashinoa

'Un’altra Forma' is the third album from French krautrock project Ashinoa. Whilst still driven by the synthesised motorik beats and rhythms and experimental electronica of 2022's 'L'Orée', on its follow up Ashinoa move into new, dreamlike territory – assuming 'another form', as the title translates. Here, Matteo Fabbri and Mathias Chirpaz enlist a cast of players between Lyon, Venice and Beaujeu and expands the Ashinoa palette with clarinet, saxophone, flute and piano, weaving in hazy shades of psychedelic jazz and echoes of 1960s Brazilian music and lo-fi breakbeats. The result is a record that balances heavier head-down electronics and moments of breezy, downtempo bliss

“Un’altra forma refers to that which differs from the known", Fabbri says, "and is a tribute to the reassuring confusion one can feel when discovering that something one thought was defined or finished can take on another form. The distortion of the senses, whether intentional or not, is the common thread running through the album, and variations on this concept can be found in several tracks, such as ‘Nudity and Salt Water’, ‘Keplerstrasse’ and ‘Room of Whispers’. The musical research that followed aimed to orchestrate this idea of alternating between the known (ordinary) and the new (extra-ordinary) in the best possible way."

Although 'Un'altra Forma' finds Fabbri helming the songwriting solo following the departure of Jeremy Labarre, with whom he started the band in 2015, it's also Ashinoa's most collaborative record to date. Much of the album was written in Beaujeu, at a friend’s house among the Beaujolais vineyards. There he is joined by the rest of the band, Mathias Chirpaz and Lucien Chatin on drums. In two intense weeks, the band records 10 tracks: “We worked day and night to find the textures that best suited the project,” he recalls.

The second phase continued in Venice and Lyon, where further layers were added by friends and collaborators. Andrea Vecchiato’s flute, Alberto Collodel’s clarinet, and Teresa Lo Greco’s vocals were recorded in Venice, adding an airy and cinematic dimension. Back in Lyon, Estelle Mouge contributed piano, alongside Jeremy Labarre and Giles Davenport on vocals. In Ardèche, Romain Vasset (aka Quelque) also contributed clarinet and saxophone before Fabbri bunkered down in his Lyon studio to bring all the material together and mix the end-result. Throughout 'Un'altra Forma', Ashinoa's synthesised krautrock is enriched with a newfound organic warmth – both meticulously crafted and instinctively fluid, it embodies the concept of “another form” in its very structure.