Asteroidi

"Progenie Terrestre Pura" is a bit of a mouthful, and most of us don't speak Italian so we'd be sure to mangle the pronunciation, so I will just refer to the band by their preferred abbreviation q[T]p which looks a very spiffy rendering of the band's logo. I realise I have come at the wrong end of the duo's discography - I should have started with their first release and then gone onto their debut album before coming to "Asteroidi" - since this EP is an all-electronic space-ambient production that does not even feature any vocals. The only elements here that might tie "Asteroidi" to q[T]p's other work are the EP's themes of space travel and exploration (perhaps as a form of transcendence) and the merging of humanity and machine implied in some musical passages that hint at the influence of industrial music.

The EP is split into two very long tracks of 14 and 10 minutes respectively. One track, "Comete", is split into three parts "Plutone", "Kuiper" and "Oort" which in their proper sequential order describe the transit of a comet (or its man-made equivalent) from our solar system, first going past Pluto, out through the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud of objects, and on the way to Proxima Centauri - but no, this isn't the 14-minute tracker you might have been expecting. Instead this is a pensive ambient poem of round raindrop tone, twittering effects and soft skittery percussion. At this point, a listener's previous experience of hearing this kind of electro-disco can interfere with enjoying this piece: so much of this music, especially the rhythms, reminds me a lot of sultry electronic disco tropicalia I sometimes listen to when I want a break from black metal. I'd have preferred the floaty weightless tones and squiggles in a vast black emptiness without the continuous beats and rhythms.

The real humdinger is meant to be the title track which launches listeners into outer space and takes them to the point where "Comete" begins: it's a busy electro-disco piece of bleep-bloop melody, repeating multi-tone loops, drones sighing in the background and a stodgy pace in parts where synthesised beats come in. Massive and epic track this strives to be but there's no sense of the awe and wonder at the vast expanse of space and the tremendous scale of the undertaking that is space travel that we humans have embarked upon. As a result "Asteroidi" (the track) fusses about for most of its running time and for all I know, this could be a soundtrack for a robots' secret conference on how to overthrow humanity and install themselves as our overlords and rulers of Earth.

The actual music is pleasant, smooth and relaxing to hear though as a soundtrack to immerse listeners in imaginary journeys through space it doesn't work well. Much of it is actually too fast and too busy to allow listeners to ease into this alien environment. There should have been something slightly menacing as well throughout the whole recording: space travel is meant to be challenging, even dangerous and harrowing, and this music makes it look like first class passenger travel on the Queen Mary 2. I get the feeling that q[T]p were probably a little too in love with the lovely sounds and effects they were generating to the extent that they lost sight of what this recording really needed.