Dino Spiluttini - Heaven - LP

Heaven is a work of contemporary church music. Centrally occupied with the subject of death, its conceptualisation was catalysed by Spiluttini’s discovering his mother’s preparations both for her own death and for his. He arrived at her home in 2015 to be led into the local church and shown the two adjacent places she had reserved for their urns. The tracks on Heaven together consist of an analogously personal and anticipatory negotiation with death.

Partly derived from organ recordings made in the same church, the album frequently enlists Arvo Pärt’s compositional method of tintinnabuli. Aside from the thematic logic of its sacred associations, the method suits Spiluttini’s tendency, in spite of heavy and dynamic passages, to minimise tonal complexity. His characteristic uses of gnashing bass, restlessly irregular pacing and serrated distortion return. This time, they combine with pads, harps, fluttering organs and swooping choirs.

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