David August is the musician / composer behind the Berlin-based label 99CHANTS. Both August, and the roster of artists on the imprint, create music of an experimental nature. Modern music designed to blur boundaries. Collisions of techno, classical, ambient and noise. August has now, however, adopted the alias Argento, to demonstrate a softer side and deliver an album of chilled out sounds to Music From Memory. 

Titled “Miraggi”, the long-player serves as an imaginary soundtrack, a love letter to the beauty of the Mediterranean, and in particular Italy, Tuscany’s Tyrrhenian coast. Taking his cues from `70s and `80s library music, and enlisting the assistance of drummer and percussionist Lorenzo Setti, August set out to produce something cinematic, and he certainly succeeded. 

Across the 10 tracks synths are used to summon a swooning, romantic tone. Their playful, dramatic, chiming patterns shifting between mimicking vibes, panpipes, plucked guitars, marimba-like movements, and harp glissando. “Tramonto” opens with chords recalling Jon Hassell’s horns. Introducing a cool, understated, atmospheric haze that could be an outtake from David Sylvian’s “Brilliant Trees”. “Salsedine” includes tasteful, tango touches of kinda accordion / bandoneon drones. 

“Mare Arcaico” is a race of whispers, sighs and soaring strings, that could pass for a Synclavier symphony by Wally Badarou, or one of the pioneers’ `80s contemporaries. Here, Setti’s cymbals shimmer like surf, and throughout he provides rhythms that travel from gentle, lapping tides to rumbles, chugs and tribal-tinged tumbling. Tempos that perfectly compliment August’s work. Setti’s sophisticated, swinging syncopation on the bouncing, buoyant “Sabbia Su Sabbia”, for example, helping to showcase the jazz-fusion flavoured virtuosity of August’s keyboard flights. 

Field recorded waves crash, birds and cicadas sing. The compositions in places suggesting Innovative Communication acts, beloved in The Balearics, such as Software, or Dancing Fantasy, and anything, everything, on the album could easily have been plundered by Jose Padilla for a classic Cafe del Mar sunset. 

Argento’s “Miraggi” can be ordered directly from Music From Memory.