Stream new album Land Of Corals
Four years after their sophomore record, Tigris & Euphrates, and an acclaimed performance at Roadburn Festival, the creative duo of Matteo Dossena and Franz Cardone (aka SHERPA) take us on yet another singular and immersive aural journey with their new album, Land Of Corals.
Their hybrid marriage of shoegaze, atmospheric doom/post-metal and electronics blossoms in lush textures and slow but rewarding build-ups, with Dossena’s airy vocals making for a highly tantalizing ride. Darkness and light coexist seamlessly throughout the album’s 40 minutes — either through the trip-hop-meets-drone vibe of intro track ‘Silt’ and the soaring bleakness of 8-minute epic ‘Coward/Pilgrimage To The Sun’, or the fast-paced indie rock intricacy of lead single ‘High Walls’ — and just like life and death, they revolve in an endless, compelling cycle that gently swallows all souls passing nearby.
Order Land Of Corals on Bandcamp and Subsound Records store
SHERPA is a project created in 2015 by Matteo Dossena (composer, singer and guitarist) and Franz Cardone (bass, synthesizers). After releasing their psychedelic-pastoral debut album, Tanzlinde, on Sulatron Records in 2016, they took part in Cristina Donà’s Tregua 1997-2017 Stelle Buone to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of her debut album, Tregua. Their 2018 sophomore album, Tigris & Euphrates (Sulatron Records), shifted towards darker and heavier sounds, allowing SHERPA to be invited to perform at Roadburn Festival in 2019. After four years of composing and meditation, a new album is born: Land Of Corals will be released in November 2023 through Italian label Subsound Records.
About Land Of Corals, the band says: “‘The album tells the tale of the human relationship with death and mortality, of how constantly sensitized to pain and to the concept of “end” we are, almost not realizing how much in tune with the death-rebirth paradigm we are. The imaginative vision shows a land full of human beings who are aware of fortifying their soul through death, just like corals die, crumble and with their minerals fortify the structure of the younger of their species. Nature becomes aware of itself, finds balance and takes over the land. Humans, with their lust for spiritual domination over their kind, chain the human soul making it arrogant, competitive and lonely. Then liberation comes: the rediscovery of animal instincts. The soul is overwhelmed by the idea that every living thing sooner or later dies. In the end, we witness a warning to all the cowardly souls who run from dealing with the universe, as well as a lucid awareness of the infinite cycles of death and rebirth. As Goethe wrote: “Nature! […] Life is her most exquisite invention, and death is her expert contrivance to get plenty of life”. Land Of Corals is a land where the body dies but the soul is reborn, endlessly trying to reconnect to its own star.”
SHERPA is:
Matteo Dossena — songwriting, guitar, vocals
Franz Cardone — bass, synthesizers