Fabio D'Onofrio — Cosmos In Cosmos
[Iter Research — 2023]★★★★★
Reviewed 5 October 2023by Paul Casey
Cosmos In Cosmos marks the first release by Fabio D'Onofrio after many highly regarded and awarded soundtracks. This first outing, a five song EP on Iter Research, shows the composer and multi-instrumentalist blurring the lines between electro-pop and soundtrack, building quite an impressive base of sound and emotion in such a short amount of time. While his solo, non soundtrack career is just starting, his talents in composing for theater and films bolsters his ideas and drive, marking Cosmos In Cosmos as the start of a fantastic new phase in an already celebrated musical career.
Short but sweet, Cosmos In Cosmos effectively utilizes its five song structure to present the listener with a loose, sonic tale through an electronic and engaging lens. Starting with the intriguing cover art, one can get the sense of duality here, both hot and cold, inviting and distant, internal and external, and many other wonderful conflicts. Like the apparent universe inside an atom, D'Onofrio constructs tight songs that utilize varied layers to give the sonic appearance of far more space than the structure would seem to allow. A Cosmos In Cosmos, so to speak, the album embraces the concept of space with a deftly controlled electronic scope, with softness, glitches, and noise all coming together to form the whole. And with the number of layers working together, the listener can travel any number of paths to get to the song's end, standing on each and observing the others to get a different perspective shift and deepening their enjoyment of the song as a whole. This impressive construction adds far more depth and time than a typical EP would provide, leading to much longer listening sessions while one decodes their own meaning for Cosmos In Cosmos.
Fabio D'Onofrio's debut solo EP, Cosmos In Cosmos, may be on the shorter side, but it more than makes up for this with its depth and passion. With each composition fully utilizing its scope and run time, D'Onofrio is able to pack each layer with evocative electronics, dynamics, and imagination. One's first spin of Cosmos In Cosmos is a perfect teaser, and will guarantee them hitting play for round two the second the first ends. For more info