Ciro Vitiello - The Island Of Bouncy Memories (2024)

Poetic and romantically surreal, Ciro Vitiello's debut is a meditation on nostalgia and adulthood that threads quirky vocals through tender, enigmatic soundscapes, repeating themes and phrases until they turn into half-remembered dreams.

'The Island of Bouncy Memories' is Vitiello's attempt to map his dreamworld, based on initial sketches he made using his collection of childhood toys. These ideas were eventually fleshed out, and braided with vocals from Zimmy and Rose Greenfield (aka CRAEBABE), and delicate acoustic guitar from Attilio Novellino. It's startling stuff too, that cautiously lets us into Vitiello's memory banks, sliding from playfulness into unease and anxiety. Zimmy's voice on 'Cinder Eyes' is confident but childlike; she sounds almost like Björk as she breathes over Vitiello's music box twangs and disintegrated percussion, her voice twisting into abstraction and reverberating into alien ambience. And the tracks don't so much begin and end as melt into each other - the synth part from 'Cinder Eyes' introduces the solemn 'Nisida', a track that memorializes the island off the coast of Naples, where Vitiello grew up, and contains an infamous youth detention center.

CRAEBABE's vocals meanwhile help draw us towards adulthood; she sounds smoky and operatic on 'Malt Vinegar', soaring into thick smoke clouds over evocative field recordings and thick, cinematic sub-bass rips. Vitiello's use of vocals is intriguing, as if he's challenging our understanding of pop music. Familiar music can be like a smell or a taste, deploying us right back where we heard it the first time, and Vitello mimics the process by letting the songs crumble into trace elements. This isn't a pop album by any means, but it uses the language of pop to bolster its psychedelic abstractions, letting Novellino's twangs on 'Horse Woman', for example, remind us of any number of background ballads without actually becoming musical wallpaper itself. Vitiello works like Daniel Lopatin almost, shrouding his unguarded recollections in sonic subterfuge to tell a story that's rattled by time and experience.

Tracklist
1. Dear Wizard, I Have These Dreams About Talking Animal (01:18)
2. Cinder Eyes (feat Zimmy) (03:36)
3. Nisida (01:50)
4. Ciro Vitiello & CRAEBABE – Malt Vinegar (04:07)
5. Horse Woman (feat Attilio Novellino) (05:13)
6. Ciro Vitiello & CRAEBABE – Pillow Fight At Sandwich Bay (02:25)
7. Fishing Net (Empty Room) (02:04)
8. Pyjamas (03:16)
9. Turquoise Siren (04:51)
10. The Island Of The Living (feat Attilio Novellino) (02:10)
11. Sell Change Heart For A Crocodile (03:18)
12. Living In A Bouncy Castle (03:46)
13. Ciro Vitiello & CRAEBABE – White Luggage (03:14)