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(Unheard of Hope)The full-blooded and emotionally driven fourth solo album from the avant garde pop cellist is abundantly melodic, constantly surprising and unequivocally fantasticA recent magazine feature described Mabe Fratti as “the best avant garde pop cellist since Arthur Russell”. It’s hard to know whether to take that as laudatory superlative or faint praise. Russell has certainly seen his star rise in recent years: an overlooked figure at the time of his death in 1992, he’s posthumously become a very hip name to drop, an influence regularly cited for his boundary-free experimentation in everything from disco to modern classical to left-field pop. Equally, the world hasn’t exactly been bursting at the seams with avant garde pop cellists since Russell’s passing: it could just as easily mean that Fratti, a 32-year-old Guatemalan based in Mexico City, is No 2 in a field of two.But listening to her fourth solo album – after last year’s breakout collaborations with improv group Amor Muere, and Titanic, her chamber duo with partner Héctor Tosta – you understand why Russell’s name is being invoked in the same breath. It’s not that Sentir Que No Sabes sounds like anything in Russell’s lauded oeuvre – it doesn’t – but then it doesn’t really sound like anything else either. Even after scanning Fratti’s inspirations, you struggle to come up with anything to pin her music to. Talk Talk circa Laughing Stock? Only in so far as the brass arrangements, the work of Tosta, lean more towards jazz than rock or pop. Cult French post-punk artist Lizzy Mercier Descloux? There’s certainly a disjointed funk feel to some of the rhythms, but you wouldn’t have volunteered her name without Fratti’s own prompting. The opening track seems to be named after Lenny Kravitz and features a distorted funk-rock bassline, but there the similarity seems to end. Under the circumstances, you might as well chuck Russell’s name into the ring: at least they share an instrument and a delightfully off-message approach to songwriting. Continue reading...