For those unaware, the modern jazz quartet Claudio Scolari Project is back with its seventh album, Intermission.

The album features Claudio Scolari on drums/synth programming, Daniele Cavalca on drums/live synths/rhodes/piano, Simone Scolari on trumpet and finally Michele Cavalca on electric bass (the new entry of the project who turned the trio into a quartet).

The new work is an answer to the need of going back to a more natural, acoustic scenario of sounds, where electronics are more subtle and leave more space to the acoustic instruments, Claudio Scolari explains. The general mood of the album seems to bring the listener into a theatrical scenario in which the music breaths between the notes, perhaps during long rests.

1. Cannoli on Board (7:48)
2. Croque Monsieur (5:24)
3. Ice Glitter (5:48)
4. Don’t Look Back (7:20)
5. Intermission (2:15)
6. What How (8:47)
7. Seven Four (6:39)
8. Damn Funk (7:27)
9. Rainbow Mirror (6:49)
10. Hidden in The Sand (7:01)
11. Come With Me (6:34)
12. Come With Me (Part 2)(06:31)
13. Pullulation (4:49)

On what is a quite exceptional, elegantly crafted new recording, the first tracks we are privileged to hear are the softly slinking Cannoli on Board and the joyously upbeat Croque Monsieur and they are backed by the veritably industrial at times, ethereally-hued at others Ice Glitter, the bass-led, percussion-veined, low slung funk of Don’t Look Back, the short, but jangly-sweet Intermission, and then comes the more prominent, broader strokes within What How.

Next up we get the absorbent Seven Four and the foot-tapping grooves and rhythms within the aptly-named Damn Funk, and they are in turn followed by the mechanically-imbibed Rainbow Mirror, the soft-as-silk Hidden in The Sand, the truly magnificent, triumphantly soaring Come With Me, the album rounding out on its more percussionally-ingrained second part Come With Me (Part 2), coming to a close on the quietly passive, the next rambunctiously fervent jam within Pullulation.

CLAUDIO SCOLARI: drum set 1, synth programming
DANIELE CAVALCA: drum set 2, live synths, rhodes, piano
SIMONE SCOLARI: trumpet
MICHELE CAVALCA: electric bass

Official Purchase Link