DONELLI A.I. ENSEMBLE - Primo Quarto

​DONELLI A.I. ENSEMBLE

Primo Quarto
self-released; 2026

By Jamie Funk

There’s a strange tension running through Primo Quarto by DONELLI A.I. ENSEMBLE. The record keeps reaching toward the language of human performance: rock grooves, Latin rhythms, glossy ‘80s pop production, new age textures, stacked vocal harmonies. Yet almost every time the music settles into something recognizable, another layer appears that bends it into something novel. The album rarely sounds like a band occupying the same room together. Instead it plays like an enormous digital mosaic where every instrument, every drum hit, and every vocal line has been placed under a microscope and aligned with near-clinical precision.

The opening title track, “Primo Quarto,” immediately establishes that aesthetic. Structurally it resembles a Western pop-rock song, but the arrangement is packed with instrumentation that moves with machine-like exactness. The timing is so locked to a degree it sounds a bit surreal. Even when guitars enter with a more traditional rock presence, the production keeps everything polished into sharp edges.

“Decadence” pushes the maximalism even further. The song constantly mutates, piling keyboard textures, percussion, and shifting melodic ideas into a dense mix that occasionally threatens to collapse under its own weight. I actually liked how excessive it became. The glossy sheen recalls the hyper-produced side of ‘80s pop where every surface gleamed under fluorescent studio light. The energy changes rapidly, almost as if the song is scanning through different emotional presets in real time.

Throughout the album, DONELLI A.I. ENSEMBLE keeps introducing new vocalists and stylistic pivots. “Il popolo degli uomini” centers around a distinctly different male lead voice, while “Saluto al sole” leans into a Latin rock framework. Even there, though, the precision becomes part of the experience.

By the middle stretch of the album, I genuinely lost track of how many singers were involved. “Danza di piazza” sounds like another entirely new vocalist stepping into frame. “Onna-bugeisha” continues the album’s obsession with control and immaculate timing, while “Sette” pulls things toward warmer, almost meditative new age textures. Then “Guardie e ladri” arrives with drumming so mechanically perfect that I found myself questioning whether a human could realistically perform it in one take. “Musica resiliente” closes one of the record’s more celebratory stretches with an almost festival-like energy.

​Eighteen songs is a lot to absorb but the artist pulls it off. Still, the album’s most defining quality is not genre-hopping but atmosphere. There’s an uncanny quality hanging over these songs that never fully disappears. Part of it comes from the overwhelming density of instrumentation and rotating vocalists, but mostly it comes from the sensation that every detail feels perfectly aligned. The result is fascinating and difficult to mistake for anything else.

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