Alessio Ballerini – Blanc

Earlier this week, the folks at Zymogen sent out a newsletter promoting their new release, Alessio Ballerini‘s Blanc, and I immediately tweeted that this album as a required download without even hearing one note! At the surface such behavior seems quite odd, but given Zymogen’s track record of limited releases and each one of them of extreme quality, recommending with out listening is quite understandable.

Yesterday as I gave thanks by downloading and listening to free netlabel music, I listened to Alessio Ballerini’s Blanc. What can I say other than I was right; Blanc is a fantastic ambient album that deserves a place on your portable listening device. Ballerini, an Italian sound artists, has released a few solo records and several collaborative works as well as working in the field recording and soundtrack realm.

Blanc is a mixture of field recordings and ambient, put together as both a concept album and a installation piece. The download comes with two videos and several drawings as well. Given Ballerini’s extensive collaborative work, it’s of no surprise that several of Blanc‘s tracks include other musicians and sound artists. This EP is delightfully gorgeous, and like other excellent work, Blanc entices the listener to go and download Ballerini’s other work.

Artist: Alessio Ballerini
Title: Blanc
Netlabel: Zymogen
Release Date: 22 November 2010
Download mp3: zip

Tracks: 01. The Small Sea and the Great Ocean (mp3), 02. Noir (mp3), 03. Blanc (mp3), 04. Lociverba3 (mp3), and 05. Everything Else (mp3).