For his solo sophomore effort, Italian turntablist Filipo Paolini (a.k.a. Okapi) turns to the works of the (apparently fictional) avant-garde 20th-century composer Aldo Kapi. The bizarre and tragic life story of the ersatz composer acts as a peculiar sort of framing device for the album as a whole, providing an imaginative psychic world for Love Him to inhabit. The result is an album that is admirable for its playfulness, even if it’s not consistently compelling.
Okapi maintains a frenetic pace. The seat-of-his-pants sound collages slip in and out of genres the way a diva changes outfits. The base elements that he works with — archival sound bytes, classical string and woodwind instruments, and smoky jazz samples — all lend an antiquated charm to the compositions and help to reinforce the album’s mythology. By mingling them with more modern sounds, like the gentle electronic pulses (reminiscent of fellow Italian experimentalists Comfort) in “Ti Chiamero ’10” or the piercing shriek of a Theremin in “Everything Must Change, P. 2,” he manages to keep his listener off-balance for the duration of the record (the latter also has a very David Lynch feel to it, thanks to some unearthly vocals).
While Okapi makes some inspired choices, like the viola strain that winds its way through “Ti Chiamero,” there’s a lot of filler. Nearly half the tracks hover around the one-minute mark, and most of them feel more like curiosities than fully formed songs. The endless cavalcade of shifting textures is immediately captivating, but melts into an indistinct mass moments after listening to it. And while Paolini has a manifest talent for mashing up genres, I don’t feel like that talent is in short supply these days. Thankfully, the album’s boisterousness and restless energy prevents it from devolving into an empty postmodern exercise, but the songs don’t have a ton of staying power. Love Him is as enchanting as its central figure, but unfortunately not much more substantial.
More about: Okapi
