Donato Scaramuzzi (Donato Dozzy) is a character that has only recently become famous in the world of electronic music.
Those of you who have been following the Italian scene for a long time do not need to be introduced, and all the rest probably learned about its existence after last year's (fantastic with the rest) release – "The Voices From The Lake". It was thanks to the cooperation with Giuseppe Tillieci (Neel) and the album, which they released together, that a wider audience got to know the characteristic sound and atmosphere accompanying the compositions created by Dozzi.
The latest creation of the Italian manufacturer at first glance surprises us with its apparent simplicity. Donato Dozzy's "Plays Bee Mask" and seven songs that are called "Vaporware" and differ only in numbers. Where's the story? Where are the complicated, long titles containing words that we are often unable to understand? Where is all the rest – the addition, which has recently become more important than the content itself – that is, the music? Nowhere. Because history is downright banal. At one of the Japanese festivals where Dozzy had the opportunity to perform, he met the American producer Chris Masak (Bee Mask).
The musician asked his colleague if he would like to work on a remix of his recently released song "Vaporwave". Dozzy agreed, not yet knowing what really awaited him. It turned out that as he began to break down Bee Mask's composition into prime factors and delve deeper into the intricacies of the sounds hidden there, instead of a few-minute remix, he produced almost an hour of material. Not knowing what to do about it, he left the decision to Spectrum Spools. Fortunately, no one came up with the idea to fish out only one fragment from a bucket of Dozzi's music and pour out the rest. On the contrary. The label decided to release the whole thing as an album.
If I knew to whom, I would now bow to the person(s) who made this happen. As you can see, sometimes it is worth the risk, because it turned out that the album appealed not only to Bee Mask, but also to a whole host of gourmets of good electronics.
It has been known for a long time that Dozzi's music has something special about it. The spaces created by him with the help of sounds – hypnotize even the most demanding listeners. On the one hand, it makes us move away from reality, but at the same time, through its intuition, it can subtly wake us up from time to time, emphasizing sounds that make them refreshing. Dozzi's music is extremely thoughtful, but not predictable, which can be seen on "Plays Bee Mask", because despite the fact that it is based on one song, so much happens while listening, so much changes that we are not able to rest on our laurels. And even if our mind gets carried away and starts drifting somewhere too far, it will return to Earth when after a few dozen minutes the sounds on the album come full circle and we hear the most characteristic motif from the song Bee Mask – bells that started this story for us when we pressed the play button in our player.
Some say that Donato Dozzy composed an interpretation of the song Bee Mask, simply lengthened it, modified it and there is really nothing to admire. There is some truth in this statement, at least in its first part. However, "Plays Bee Mask" is more than just a simple interpretation. It's a kind of musical brooding. It shows us how much a short piece of music can hide, and most importantly, how wonderful can be what will be extracted from it when a person who knows perfectly well how it should be done takes care of it.