Visconti is a reasonably common surname, so I didn’t expect the Morgan Visconti record that landed in the review pile to be the son of music royalty – none other than Tony Visconti and Mary Hopkin. But I guess that it’s just a case of a son following in the family business.
Even though this multi-instrumentalist and producer has been making music, essentially electronic pop and ambient exploration, since the early nineties, this is my first encounter with his music. It’s my fault, not his, but in my defense, you can’t be everywhere at once.
What is even more unusual is that, given the music he makes on Twilight City, itself a suite of songs written when he was a newly independent 19-year-old in New York City in 1991, it has taken me so long to discover his sonic delights. I mean, with reference points such as Tangerine Dream,Vangelis, William Orbit and even Kraftwerk, it seems I have been skirting around his music for a long time anyway. But with these formative recordings revisited, I have found the perfect place to start, the perfect first step into what I expect will be a rewarding catch-up with his work.
Many of the titles, including the album itself, allude to aspects of the urban environment, and, to that end, we are presented with a gorgeous array of electronic textures, samples and tape loops, a display of digital dexterity and an altogether beguiling, beautiful, entrancing, and often ethereal sonic experience.
Twilight City might be the sound of someone looking back on their first steps into music, but the combination of that younger man’s imagination and experimentation and the old, wiser self, adding experience and expertise, makes this a transformative and tantalizing listen. I’m just sorry it took me so long to get here.
