"I cannot turn the page / until no white remains / to sleep tonight would really kill my vibe..."
I have been writing about Luke De-Sciscio's artful endeavors since 2018. Luke is one of those artists who doesn't stand artistically in one place for very long. Whether dipping into more classic folk tones, singer-songwriter, folk indie, psychedelic folk, progressive rock, post alt rock or an amalgam of all those genres, Luke is a man who has to express himself and evolve into something else in the process.
His latest manifestation, a 9 track album entitled "The Banquet", at first glimpse, seems to draw from the birthplace of classical music, ie 15th century music, the Renaissance period but Luke takes such impressions and twists them on their head. Within the album there are too many cross-generational genre blending moments to mention in one breath. It is as if these styles and, more importantly, these historical artistic cues were put in a magical petri dish to organically develop into another thing, something that lies somewhere between an opera and a theatrical stage play. A sound that, across the breadth and scope of an album, gleefully shape-shifts in cinematic ways. Luke is that auteur here with the core of each song written, recorded and produced by his hand but he smartly takes a wholistic approach by bringing in collaborators from all over the world broadening the sound in big ways.
The title track, "The Banquet (in G#)", is from the onset a bit of a mind bender. The narrative is framed on a comfortable drum beat that cues you that the sonic milieu is set in today's time but then things get sketchy. The lyrical cues to court jesters, kings and other times of yore with evocative violin solos and gradual orchestrations give you the illusion (metaphorical or not) that this album might be framed in the kind of folk and post rock that draws from medieval times but soon you learn that this is not the case. Luke's vocal aesthetic is daring and beautiful and soon he stirs in modern nomenclature, references to video gaming and coding and the song orchestrally shifts many times over. At one point, the sound of the entire song sounds distant, the fidelity from widescreen to narrow as if everything you heard before maybe illusionary, a speaker in an antiquated 60's drive in. Seconds later, it feels like 70's prog folk rock and later the song explodes more like a gospel choir in a huge mega church. The song is audacious in its approach but emotionally stirring in its artful punch. AS a first track it makes you feel like you are in for a sort of progressive folk rock album but you will be wrong.
Other tracks like the soulful "Happy To Be Here [I Might Die Tomorrow]" could be (in another light) a step into a sort of 50's chamber pop world. The wide vocal support and sort of surf pop meets heartland rock is the stuff of wide cinemascope musicals. "In A Moment Just Like This One" feels like a sister song and I still feel the sort of doo wop sway and late 50's shinning pants and chiffon gowned beauty in the glistening dancing guitar notes that prance across some wooden stage in the middle of open plains. I cannot explain the surreal sense that you will experience as Luke takes you through these transportive dioramas that turn and shift and turn again.
"Who Said Identity Crisis" with a broad impassioned balladic style of Roy Orbison-esque crooning is remarkable in its ability to cast imagery in your mind. "The Pantheon" and "The Great Worm Came For Tea" are stunningly beautiful and it is hard for me to not only describe the exact blending of styles but the feeling of abstract tones fortified by the evocative orchestration, one of these songs interludes into spoken word, a poem I cannot identify (I tried) and this surprising twist only works to pull you further down large rabbit holes. Then, next, Luke effortlessly slides into "Uninspired Tripe" that has the artful pop indie angular tones of a collision of artists like Harry Nilsson and Stephen Malkmus (Pavement). "Baby, it's okay, I'm here, wake up" sucks you down with lush otherworldly drones of sound with (once again) classically drawn orchestration. Luke's vocal aesthetic (here) now feels maybe less stylized but absolutely crushing in its pained honesty. By this spot on the album, you are near its end and your head might be spinning as if to ask yourself how did I get here. The journey has been incredibly captivating, this song with its bluesy guitars popping up through the dense jazz fluttered orchestration is blissfully embracing. This might be the single most beautiful piece on this album.
The very last song, "Ode To My Father (an Honourable Man)" feels very much in the vein of the song that preceded it. The electric piano sounds are endearing and the embracing sparse orchestration holds up this ballad fueled by Luke's long melancholic sustains and pushes falsettos that feel like tears. The sonic sense here feels like soulful garden rock and the decision to keep it real and not have grand orchestral support but instead falling mellotron-esque synths and lovely backing vox is a beautiful one. It anchors this ending credit as a testament of sorts, a walk into the dark.
"The Banquet" is truly an album as a conceptual piece of art as opposed to just a collection of songs. Luke De-Sciscio has crafted something that is so hard to define and I will undoubtedly ask him for the lyrics to every song so I can saturate myself with this album's words and sounds for weeks to come. I thought the album would be one thing but it turned out to be something entirely different. I thought of a lot of shapes and colors as I experienced these songs, an amalgam of different artists from different times, some like absolute beauty of a composer like Gordon Jenkins (60's), artful pop finesse of Harry Nilsson, the romance of Cole Porter, the 60's surfside sunshine of Van Dyke Parks, the kissed cabaret of Freddie Mercury, the crooning mirrored utopia of Roy Orbison and the surreal fog of Alligator Indian but most of all, MOST of all, I thought of the brain and heart of Luke himself. An artful soul that I must delve into more, pick his brain and heart in the future.
I must include these credits for the album as a whole:
Written, performed, recorded and produced by Luke De-Sciscio with:
His latest manifestation, a 9 track album entitled "The Banquet", at first glimpse, seems to draw from the birthplace of classical music, ie 15th century music, the Renaissance period but Luke takes such impressions and twists them on their head. Within the album there are too many cross-generational genre blending moments to mention in one breath. It is as if these styles and, more importantly, these historical artistic cues were put in a magical petri dish to organically develop into another thing, something that lies somewhere between an opera and a theatrical stage play. A sound that, across the breadth and scope of an album, gleefully shape-shifts in cinematic ways. Luke is that auteur here with the core of each song written, recorded and produced by his hand but he smartly takes a wholistic approach by bringing in collaborators from all over the world broadening the sound in big ways.
The title track, "The Banquet (in G#)", is from the onset a bit of a mind bender. The narrative is framed on a comfortable drum beat that cues you that the sonic milieu is set in today's time but then things get sketchy. The lyrical cues to court jesters, kings and other times of yore with evocative violin solos and gradual orchestrations give you the illusion (metaphorical or not) that this album might be framed in the kind of folk and post rock that draws from medieval times but soon you learn that this is not the case. Luke's vocal aesthetic is daring and beautiful and soon he stirs in modern nomenclature, references to video gaming and coding and the song orchestrally shifts many times over. At one point, the sound of the entire song sounds distant, the fidelity from widescreen to narrow as if everything you heard before maybe illusionary, a speaker in an antiquated 60's drive in. Seconds later, it feels like 70's prog folk rock and later the song explodes more like a gospel choir in a huge mega church. The song is audacious in its approach but emotionally stirring in its artful punch. AS a first track it makes you feel like you are in for a sort of progressive folk rock album but you will be wrong.
Other tracks like the soulful "Happy To Be Here [I Might Die Tomorrow]" could be (in another light) a step into a sort of 50's chamber pop world. The wide vocal support and sort of surf pop meets heartland rock is the stuff of wide cinemascope musicals. "In A Moment Just Like This One" feels like a sister song and I still feel the sort of doo wop sway and late 50's shinning pants and chiffon gowned beauty in the glistening dancing guitar notes that prance across some wooden stage in the middle of open plains. I cannot explain the surreal sense that you will experience as Luke takes you through these transportive dioramas that turn and shift and turn again.
"Who Said Identity Crisis" with a broad impassioned balladic style of Roy Orbison-esque crooning is remarkable in its ability to cast imagery in your mind. "The Pantheon" and "The Great Worm Came For Tea" are stunningly beautiful and it is hard for me to not only describe the exact blending of styles but the feeling of abstract tones fortified by the evocative orchestration, one of these songs interludes into spoken word, a poem I cannot identify (I tried) and this surprising twist only works to pull you further down large rabbit holes. Then, next, Luke effortlessly slides into "Uninspired Tripe" that has the artful pop indie angular tones of a collision of artists like Harry Nilsson and Stephen Malkmus (Pavement). "Baby, it's okay, I'm here, wake up" sucks you down with lush otherworldly drones of sound with (once again) classically drawn orchestration. Luke's vocal aesthetic (here) now feels maybe less stylized but absolutely crushing in its pained honesty. By this spot on the album, you are near its end and your head might be spinning as if to ask yourself how did I get here. The journey has been incredibly captivating, this song with its bluesy guitars popping up through the dense jazz fluttered orchestration is blissfully embracing. This might be the single most beautiful piece on this album.
The very last song, "Ode To My Father (an Honourable Man)" feels very much in the vein of the song that preceded it. The electric piano sounds are endearing and the embracing sparse orchestration holds up this ballad fueled by Luke's long melancholic sustains and pushes falsettos that feel like tears. The sonic sense here feels like soulful garden rock and the decision to keep it real and not have grand orchestral support but instead falling mellotron-esque synths and lovely backing vox is a beautiful one. It anchors this ending credit as a testament of sorts, a walk into the dark.
"The Banquet" is truly an album as a conceptual piece of art as opposed to just a collection of songs. Luke De-Sciscio has crafted something that is so hard to define and I will undoubtedly ask him for the lyrics to every song so I can saturate myself with this album's words and sounds for weeks to come. I thought the album would be one thing but it turned out to be something entirely different. I thought of a lot of shapes and colors as I experienced these songs, an amalgam of different artists from different times, some like absolute beauty of a composer like Gordon Jenkins (60's), artful pop finesse of Harry Nilsson, the romance of Cole Porter, the 60's surfside sunshine of Van Dyke Parks, the kissed cabaret of Freddie Mercury, the crooning mirrored utopia of Roy Orbison and the surreal fog of Alligator Indian but most of all, MOST of all, I thought of the brain and heart of Luke himself. An artful soul that I must delve into more, pick his brain and heart in the future.
I must include these credits for the album as a whole:
Written, performed, recorded and produced by Luke De-Sciscio with:
Tone Blakelsey on organ, synthesizer, electric piano and backing vocals
Paul Hopkins on bass guitar
Douglas Erikson on drums
Elsa Guiet on cello
Eona, James Denley and Manoel Akure on backing vocals
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THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.facebook.com/Lukedesciscio/
https://lukedesciscio.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/lukedesciscio/
https://soundcloud.com/lukedesciscio
https://open.spotify.com/artist/41RGqF0I6xFG0GzQmLKDgb
The artist formerly known as Folk Boy established himself a name writing simple and disarming folk songs which won over audiences with their candid lyricism and exposé like authenticity in the recording. However, in 2022 Luke De-Sciscio returns with the next phase in his journey, establishing the scope of a continually evolving artist, unafraid to break a formula and push the frontiers of his own creativity.
With ‘The Banquet’ we are ushered into an elaborate and sprawling dream. In swathes of rococo imagery and with unashamed splendour Luke De-Sciscio invites us to span the breadth of his vision. Lushous, revealing, extravagant and bold. The results have one foot in 60’s psychedelia and the other in progressive rock and roll.
In this space he depicts stories of attempted suicide, unholy union and the boundaries at which love can find itself.
We get by with a little help from our friendsPaul Hopkins on bass guitar
Douglas Erikson on drums
Elsa Guiet on cello
Eona, James Denley and Manoel Akure on backing vocals
"The Banquet" Album is set to drop on June 24th, 2022.
-Robb Donker Curtius
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THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.facebook.com/Lukedesciscio/
https://lukedesciscio.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/lukedesciscio/
https://soundcloud.com/lukedesciscio
https://open.spotify.com/artist/41RGqF0I6xFG0GzQmLKDgb
The artist formerly known as Folk Boy established himself a name writing simple and disarming folk songs which won over audiences with their candid lyricism and exposé like authenticity in the recording. However, in 2022 Luke De-Sciscio returns with the next phase in his journey, establishing the scope of a continually evolving artist, unafraid to break a formula and push the frontiers of his own creativity.
With ‘The Banquet’ we are ushered into an elaborate and sprawling dream. In swathes of rococo imagery and with unashamed splendour Luke De-Sciscio invites us to span the breadth of his vision. Lushous, revealing, extravagant and bold. The results have one foot in 60’s psychedelia and the other in progressive rock and roll.
In this space he depicts stories of attempted suicide, unholy union and the boundaries at which love can find itself.
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art rock, post folkcore, "The Banquet (in G#)", chamber pop, Luke De-Sciscio, genre-fluid, freak folk, prog rock, New album, "The Banquet", conceptual album, collaborators from around the world,
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