Sound Impression: L’ansia che cura by Music for Sleep

L’ansia che cura, or ‘ the anxiety that cures’, is the paradoxical title of an absorbing new long form composition by Sardinian musician – and founder of rohs! records – Andrea Porcu under the moniker of Music For Sleep. It is an abstract meditation on a difficult period of his life during which he feels the anxiety he was suffering was somehow saving him from what he calls “other ills”. Perhaps that is not as paradoxical as it first sounds. Anxiety may be ravaging our society as never before and driving us all in search of sweet relief, but it is a defensive mechanism meant to help us avoid danger and harm after all.

The anxiety I had been living with for years, which I had cured (or rather, tried to cure), was at one point my salvation against other ills. ‘L’ansia che cura’ is a composition born in this circumstance between April and July 2021, and it contains all the personal and intimate feelings I had at that difficult time.

Just what it was protecting the artist from he does not say, nor does he need to. He has told us all we need to know to immerse ourselves for 42 blissful minutes in its billowing textures and undulating waves of quasi-orchestral melancholy. It is a deep, slow catharsis to which the listener can bring their own meaning and share in the curative effect of a beautifully drawn piece of music.

Links: Bandcamp | Andrea Porcu

L’ansia che cura has been released in CD edition limited to 75 hand-numbered copies by Slow Tone Collages, an offshoot of Amsterdam-based Shimmering Moods Records which was launched earlier this year with a focus on long form compositions.