I’m always intrigued when you read a list of artist’s influences and inspirations and not one of them lies within what you would call the mainstream for modern music. Whilst so many artists are looking to tried and tested templates from Oasis to Taylor Swift to Drake to emulate, Fredo Viola follows more in the wake of such pioneers as Kurt Weill, Ennio Morricone and Dmitri Shostakovich.
The result is an album of music that is based as much on soundscaping as the song, in the traditional sense, where banks of harmonies are warped and woven into hazy instrumentation, which communicates through feeling as readily as it does lyrical discourse.
My New Head links experimental pop music with Gregorian Chant, film score with psychedelia, the improbable with the artistic, the baroque with the futuristic. It is haunting, atmospheric and so wonderfully weird. So much so that it caused none other than Neil Gaiman to exclaim, “It’s MARVELOUS!…it’s what pop music would sound like if it were made by unborn psychedelic ghosts.” And he should know!
