Invisible House is a super charged duo which includes Boston’s guitar wiz Conrad Warre. This debut album finds Warre teaming up with New York City drummer Giacomo Servetti. On this recording, titled A History Of The World, the duo displays fine chops and exciting musical concepts. This album is something to listen to when one wants to engage one’s mind with tasteful interplay between skillful musicians while having a quiet drink. Savor the flavors on each track because they’re too good to let go to waste as background music while cruising the highway or working out at the gym.
Opening with “Your Perfect Mistake,” the only track to involve other players, finds Warre and Servetti working with bassist Daniel Diapaola and B3 Hammond organ player Bruce Mattson. Mattson’s organ swirls create a backdrop of rising emotion as his chords reach higher levels of expression. Diapaola keeps a consistent presence here with his low end support. From that platform, Warre launches into many fine phrases on his electric six string. His bristling lines add an interesting tension between the fine instrumentalists.
“Not Scared” follows with more of Warre’s ever so tasteful playing. Yet, here, he presses out quieter lead lines, at an easeful pace, letting his gentle expressions of sound reveal the emotions of this piece in subtle details. Meanwhile, Servetti ups the ante with down tempo but intricate drum work. This is a stick man who knows how to whip up a lot of sound with multiple hits on each piece from his set.
“The Man With 2 Heads” is as quirky as its title suggests. Offering more of the kind of smooth, eccentric vocal delivery that makes this album what it is, Warre sing-speaks this tune, and that fits beautifully with a gloriously world wariness in his lyrics. As a guitarist, he continually peels off incisive lines that never become overplayed or underplayed but rather feel like an earnest expression of a musician’s soul. Servetti compliments him well, staying with the guitar in subtle details and a carefree expression of notes.
“Descent” changes the feel and pace to an acoustic guitar mellow cruise with solidly accented notes from an electric shadowing. A more sonorous guitar phrase announces itself with darker, horn like blares and it becomes another nice shading in this painterly, colorful mood piece.
Track five “Every Day Above Ground” has a King Crimson feel in its tuneful introduction. A guitar doesn’t just play some notes, it sets a tonal landscape with its emotive tones. Warre employs his smooth, quirky narrative voice as another color in his musical painting. While Segetti provides a twisty rhythm and a solid beat, Warre presses out steady shards of tone, Warre’s dandy of a unique voice finesses his lyrics with its warm timbre and wary idealism.
“Monks” offers tasteful touches of light guitar picking and tastefully hit drum fills. The rhythm coming from Sergetti’s drum set often have the logical progression of a mathematical equation while also offering cool dollops of bopping sound.
“McGovern” is a breezy excursion into light, whistling guitar lines that inspire with their suddenly unfurling notes over a majestic backdrop of gracefully brushed drum work. It’s tastefully progressive but also hip enough to keep any music fan listening. Boy, does that Servetti whip up a lot of fills and rolls, even at this easeful, down-tempo pace.
“Dinosaurs” is a sly title, as there is no sense of huge, lumbering beasts in this piece. There is also not a lick of anything from the pre-historic period of contemporary music to suggest “dinosaurs” as a term for something long out of fashion. The piece does offer a quiet, reflective guitar line speaks volumes in its ability to create a soundscape out of the most minimal of notes.
“The World Is Flat” offers a clever metaphor about someone who is on the verge of falling off one of the four corners. Snappy, bouncy guitar lines jaunt merrily over a loose, jazzy, and plentiful offering of drum notes. Here, the guitar rhythms seem to support a fluid drum melody, if it can be termed that way. It is certainly interesting to hear how the two players continually support one another.
Warre sings “France” with the whispery hush of a shady street person, the one who knows all that happens in the hood but dare not let anyone know how he came by the info. He accompanies himself with sharp intervals of echoing, ringing guitar lines. Each time he picks off one of those dandies of a phrase, one can picture a scene of hip characters hanging out in a place with a hip vibe. Another, lighter guitar line conspires with the drum set to create a tremendous sense of motion in this number.
A sharp electric guitar line is almost hypnotic in its edgy, spiraling phrase on closing track, “Ascent.” It seems to cry out its melody lien with more intensity as it goes on. One can feel this CD’s journey coming to a glorious, final ending as Warre builds his way to the climax. A string of solid drum fills and other magic from the kit keep thing moving, briskly and freshly, the rhythm section being an essential cornerstone throughout this song and album.
Conrad Warre with his old friend and long time collaborator Giacomo Servetti have come up with a cool album of fine progressive music as a duo they’re calling Invisible House. Those who have come to respect and enjoy Warre’s efforts in his popular acid blues band Bees Deluxe can only enhance their music collection by purchasing this duo’s new album, A History Of The World, especially as its sonically advanced sound has been well documented at Natick‘s All Things Audio recording studio
