The release of a new solo album from Faith No More and Mr. Bungle singer Mike Patton means two things: a lesson in remedial Italian and chance to check out some strange, overlooked music. Having already paid homage to Italian film soundtracks on 2008’s A Perfect Place and 2010’s Mondo Cane, Patton turns his latest solo album into a tribute to composer Luciano Berio, specifically Berio’s experimental piece Laborintus II, written in 1965 to mark the 700th anniversary of Dante’s birth. Patton first presented the work in 2010 with Brussels orchestra Ictus Ensemble and Dutch choir Nederlands Kamerkoor at the Holland Festival. Here he renders a slightly different take on the free-form source material, placing greater emphasis on the interplay of classical and folk music with avant-garde jazz, while paring back the electronic and pop elements of the original.
