For those not in the know, Alex Carpani’s new album Microcosm is an album about the enormous potential of the mind, which is able to create, destroy, love, suffer, remember, forget, isolate itself from everything, live among the people, change its perspective, change its mind, put ideas to good use, cancel distances, create the most abysmal distances, resist everything, give in to nothing, grow, learn, reshape, regress, dissolve, create impossible worlds and make the impossible possible.

Phew! The mind, in other words, is a world in itself, a microcosm in which lives all that we are, what we perceive of the outside and what the world perceives about us.

Musically speaking Microcosm (releasing April 29th, 2022) is the meeting point between various genres and influences: progressive, jazz-rock, symphonic rock and thus the album has been conceived as a heterogeneous fresco with a multifaceted soul.

It is also a project that has involved prestigious musicians of the International rock scene, as well as top level musicians of the Italian scene.

1. Starless
2. Kiss And Fly
3. God Bless Amerika
4. The Mountain Of Salt
5. We Can’t Go Home Tonight
6. Footprints In The Hearts
7. Prime Numbers
8. What Once Was
9. When The Tears Roll Down
10. The Outer World
11. Redemption
12. Microcosm

This vibrantly powerful, aesthetically solid album opens on a modern and alternatively suggestive version of Starless by King Crimson (see video link below) and then leads us majestically into the gently frenetic Kiss And Fly, the heartwarming melodies found within God Bless Amerika and then comes the quietly-adorned AOR of The Mountain Of Salt, the soaring We Can’t Go Home Tonight and the fleet of foot, synth and Hammond-backed beauty Footprints In The Hearts.

Next up on this impressive album, sung in English and harmoniously mixed with rock variations that include prog, alternative and even bouts of jazz, is the Eastern-imbibed guitar piece Prime Numbers and one of my own personal favorites off this new album, the euphoric sturdiness of What Once Was and then comes the pleasing AOR of When The Tears Roll Down, the mid-tempo flow of The Outer World, the album rounding out on the almost symphonic Redemption, coming to a close on the veritably translucent rhythms within the title track, Microcosm.

Featuring:
DAVID CROSS
JON DAVISON
DAVID JACKSON
THEO TRAVIS
Bruno Farinelli
Andrea Torresani
Davide Rinaldi
Emiliano Fantuzzi

Alex Carpani is an Italian-French composer, keyboardist, singer, producer, musicologist and artistic director. He graduated in DAMS at the University of Bologna with a thesis on the music of Nino Rota in Fellini’s films that won the 1st prize of the Fellini Foundation.

He graduated at CET (a famous Italian music school) in composition and arrangement of music for films with Stelvio Cipriani, after having won a European Union scholarship that allowed him to attend the school.

He has written and self-produced a great amount of instrumental music for more than 15 years: new age, electronic music, symphonic music, music mixed with poetry, drum’n’bass, electro-jazz, music for theatre shows and documentaries.

Since 2007 he has dedicated himself to rock, releasing 5 rock albums with Italian and foreign labels which had positive feedbacks with both audience and critics, allowing him to collaborate, in studio and live, with some well known musicians of the national and international scene; such as David Jackson of Van der Graaf Generator, David Cross of King Crimson, Paul Whitehead, graphic designer of early Genesis, Aldo Tagliapietra of Le Orme, Bernardo Lanzetti of Acqua Fragile and PFM.

He has performed about 130 concerts in 20 countries of 3 continents with his band, appearing in the most important live clubs and festivals of the international progressive rock field.

He has founded the band Aerostation with Gigi Cavalli Cocchi (former drummer of Ligabue, Clan Destino, C.S.I.) releasing in 2018 the homonym debut album with Aerostella/Immaginifica label, performing concerts in Italy and abroad and opening for PFM at major events as well.

Starless - King Crimson (arranged by Alex Carpani) [Official Music Video]

Official Purchase Link

Official Website

Alex Carpani @ Facebook

Alex Carpani @ Instagram