CORRADO RUSTICI is an Italian jazz guitarist whose mission statement is to purge the guitar scene from what he calls “a lack of imagination”! So for the last six years, the Naples-born Rustici has been exploring and experimenting with his guitar and the end result is his new 9 track album ‘Aham’.
As you may well imagine, the music on ‘Aham’ is very different from the music that graces his early CV. (He’s worked with Phil Collins and Narada Michael Walden and produced for Zucherro/Paul Young and Pavarotti).
Rustici describes this new music imaginings as “part of a spiritual quest…. an existential search into being, which conjointly leads to exploring the essential nature of the perception of music”. So, it goes without saying that ‘Aham’ (a Sanskrit word for “I am”, by the way) isn’t an easy listen… but patience brings untold rewards. On the album what sounds like drums, bass, strings, woodwind and voice are all actually sounds created by the guitar with the aid of analogue pedals and digital plug-ins. The exceptions are two, vocal tracks, ‘The Guilty Thread’ sung by Rustici himself and ‘Alcove Of Stars which features Andrew Strong, who, you’ll remember, was the soulful lead in the Commitments.
CORRADO RUSTICI’S ‘AHAM’ is out now
