Gae Vinci is a Sicilian-born music producer, now based in Milan.
Vinci started releasing music in the mid-2000s, using various nicknames, mostly in the field of electronic sounds. Extremely creative, the artist consistently refuses to be filed under a particular music genre, with his influences ranging from electronic to shoegaze and folk.
Lonely Ballads finally sees Gae Vinci in the spotlight of his real identity, with all his experiences converging into a songwriting that reflects his real self. All the songs on the album were written and produced by Vinci himself, with the contribution of other musicians and singers who joined him in his studio. At the end of 2022, Gae Vinci started the independent label BLOODONTHETRACKS, as a platform to release the music he produced and sounds he believes in.
Lonely Ballads, Gae Vinci debut album, was written and recorded in Milan and is composed of 10 tracks, with a running time of roughly 55 minutes.
The world seems to spin faster and faster, in particular after the events that have occurred in the past few years and the burden of the COVID pandemic.
While confident people, obsessed with material wealth, seem to have found the right balance to timeless happiness, Gae Vinci, with his music, tries to follow the opposite direction by describing another side of society.
In his music you can feel romanticism (by now rare), the melancholy of a past that perhaps never existed, the awareness that nothing lasts forever and an atmosphere characterized by loneliness and mystery.
Gae Vinci’s music is strongly influenced by Dream Pop, Shoegaze and Folk.
The sounds of these genres, represented in a modern key, are clear in Lonely Ballads.
Almost all the tracks are sung by the American singer Cosette Gobat, who collaborated with Gae for most of the recording time.
Lonely Ballads is the first and the title track of the album, a clear introduction to the world of the producer. It is a melancholic ballad in a loner and paranormal universe that, with the following tracks, gets brighter and brighter. It feels like the sun on a spring afternoon, a warm wind that wraps you.
Who Are You Now? and Camelie have the same structure, two tracks travelling to a landscape away from the ordinary world.
Gae Vinci’s love for Folk music is crystal clear in My Favorite Color and Angel. Both songs are built around the sound of acoustic guitar, but the first one is a classic romantic ballad while the second one brings deeper shades.
Summer Is Too Long switches to a six minutes train ride into a 90’s shoegaze atmosphere, followed by the interlude Vision of Doom, kind of a tribute to Robin Guthrie.
All The Times then comes in to obfuscate your senses, the same feeling of when you have drunk too many drinks, followed by You’ve Come A Long Way Baby, a 10 minutes sonic trip with sounds exploding, making you wonder if you forgot to turn off your amps. Ashes is the last track of the album, and as a perfect circle it connects with the first track, going back to the same mood and sounds, so that the end is the beginning and vice versa.
“Lonely Ballads is my first album, I gave it everything I’ve got, and the result is very intimate. Honestly, I feel anxious about the release of the album but I’m also excited and grateful to each person that has helped me to realise this project. Alone, this couldn’t be possible.” Gae Vinci
The delicate female voice of the American singer Cosette Gobat is pure lo-fi pop, reminiscing over “shattered dreams”:
“Who knows if, among the thousand words You have understood that the liar it’s me.”
MEDIA LINKS
Jammerzine (US)
Summer Is Too Long video premiere
It’s Psychedelic Baby Mag (SLO)
Camelie video premiere
Turn Up the Volume (BE)
Luminous Dash (BE)
Selection Sorties (FR)
London Calling – Radio Rock (UK)
Real Gone Rocks (US)
Revistathe13th (ARG)
The Alternative Frequencies / Radio Leyland (UK)
DKFM (US)
Human Pleasure Radio (NZ)
A GIANT LEAP 