Bono / Burattini - Ora Sono Un Lago

A Closer Listen

I am silver and exact I am not cruel, only truthful I have looked at it so long I think it is a part of my heart Now I am a lake

Ora Sono Un Lago is an album that unfolds through reflection, in every sense of the word. Borrowing its title from Sylvia Plath’s Mirror, where the mirror transforms into a lake, Bono / Burattini construct a record concerned with self-examination, memory and transformation, balancing stillness and movement with poise. The title track immediately makes a bold statement. Rather than functioning as a mere introduction, it plunges the listener straight into a cinematic burst of synthesizers, drawing on the tradition of kosmische music. It is a sink-or-swim opening that establishes the album’s broad horizon from the outset.

What follows is a gradual process of discovery. “Prove d’esistenza / Il gesto” finds the duo feeling their way forward through the interaction between Francesca Bono’s Moog Mother-32 and Vittoria Burattini’s highly physical drumming. The piece embraces experimentation and gesture, allowing patterns and textures to emerge organically rather than forcing them into fixed forms. Elsewhere, “Acrobata” introduces a subtle sense of unease, its eerie breaths and spectral vocalisations unsettling the album’s otherwise luminous surface.

Throughout the record, Bono and Burattini move effortlessly between progressive electronics, minimalist repetition, soundtrack sensibilities and acoustic intimacy. Tracks such as “Come un riflesso” embody the album’s fascination with dialogue: between machine and performer, acoustic and electronic sound, spontaneity and manipulation. The result often recalls Italian genre cinema, library music and electronic experimentation without ever becoming nostalgic.

The closing sequence brings a shift in emotional perspective. If the album begins submerged within the lake, “Oltre le Palpebre” and the beautiful “Lonely Blue Star” gradually look upward. The latter, inspired by the rare astronomical phenomenon of a star surviving beyond its expected lifespan, becomes a fitting metaphor for endurance and transcendence. As synths, percussion and guitar drift into open space, “Ora Sono un Lago” arrives at a place of quiet acceptance. It is a record that understands reflection as a form of movement, water that appears still while carrying unseen currents beneath the surface.

photo by Antonietta Dicorato

We are grateful that Francesca Bono and Vittoria Burattini were at hand to helps us see beyond the reflection.

The title Ora Sono Un Lago comes from Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror”, where the mirror transforms into a lake, becoming a space of reflection, truth, and self-confrontation. What drew you to that particular image, and how does it resonate with the emotional and musical landscape of the album?

Francesca: The long process that usually leads to the creation of an album is influenced by external stimuli, which can stem from one’s private and social life, from political events around the world, from reading, experiences, and much more. From this melting pot, certain things sometimes break away, drifting ever closer to your orbit until they stick to you—and that’s exactly what happened with certain words written by Sylvia Plath and Patrizia Cavalli, two literary figures who kept us company during the making of the record.

Certain lines kept echoing and reverberating as we were composing, and it seemed to me that they said a lot about what we were writing, musically. So, we happened to bring them up again while we were putting together the demos for the various tracks, and I felt a strong pull toward them. Of course, the title we chose is also a meditation on the passing of time, and the role it plays in the life and output of musicians, especially female musicians who are no longer considered to be in their “prime”. But there is also a whole imaginative dimension evoked by the idea of the lake: water that does not flow, yet is by no means devoid of movement. It struck us as an effective way to describe “Ora sono un lago”, which has various depths, undercurrents, moments of pure light and darkness, murky episodes. And then there is the first line of Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror”: ‘I am silvery and exact. I have no preconceptions’, which struck me for its incredible evocative power and seemed to address us and speak for us.

Compared to Suono in un tempo trasfigurato, this record feels broader in scope, moving between kosmische electronics, progressive rock, minimalism, soundtrack music, and folk-inflected textures. Did you consciously set out to expand your sonic palette, or did these different musical languages emerge naturally during the writing process?

Vittoria: I think the answer is both. It was a conscious process, in the sense that we spent a lot of time talking, reflecting, and thinking about where we wanted to go with this record. At the same time, it felt very natural because the songs developed slowly, with new ideas emerging throughout the process. The material came from many different sources: improvisations in the rehearsal room, patterns that Francesca had recorded on her own and “forgotten” on her computer, and even ideas that emerged in the studio while we were recording the album.

When we made the first record, we decided to record essentially the same parts that we played live, without adding many extra instruments, apart from some occasional percussion, piano, or electric guitar to add colour. For this album, we agreed that we wanted to expand our musical world without worrying about how the songs would work on stage or how many instruments we could realistically play as a duo. That gave us the freedom to explore a wider range of atmospheres, powerful and intense at times, but also dreamy, delicate, and sweet. As a result, the songs became more layered and more articulated. In a way, I think we were searching for a sense of freedom, despite the fact that we are still just two people making music together.

Several tracks evoke a strong cinematic quality. The opening piece, for example, feels almost like the theme to a lost 1970s Italian independent film, while pieces such as “Acrobata” and “Prove d’esistenza/Il gesto” carry an atmosphere that recalls Carpenter soundtracks, library music, and electronic noir. How important is cinema—or cinematic thinking—to your compositional process?

Francesca: Personally, I tend to visualize music through images, and I love cinema and soundtracks, so I like to think that when someone listens to our music, they can create their own very personal movie in their head. I want every song to evoke a mental space, to allow the listener a moment of emotional release. When I was a child, though I had no idea what a soundtrack was, I remember being obsessed with the music of many films and composers, especially Wendy Carlos’s groundbreaking synthesized adaptations of classical music in A Clockwork Orange and the electronic score for The Shining, as well as Maestro Morricone’s lush compositions, of course (I love The Bird with the Crystal Plumage). Carpenter is one of the greatest, too, what I really like is his minimalist approach –  achieving maximum effect with simple means – which is a bit of our motto. As for contemporary stuff, I absolutely love Hildur Guðnadóttir’s work, and Mica Levi’s, to name a few. On that note, it’s certainly no secret that both Vittoria and I would love to score music for films. Somehow we already do it – without movies.

“Prove d’esistenza/Il gesto” was the first piece in which Francesca experimented with the Moog Mother-32. What did that instrument open up creatively, and how did its possibilities interact with Vittoria’s highly physical and distinctive drumming?

Francesca: Our first album was composed using only acoustic drums and a Roland JUNO-60 but for the new record we wanted to expand our palette, and it all happened very naturally when a mutual friend, sound designer Massimo Carozzi, showed me his Moog Mother-32 and lent it to me. I immediately felt a connection with the machine; I started improvising and recording the more textured passages to share them with Vittoria and I loved the raw sound I could come up with. I envisioned this synergy between her distinctive drumming and certain obsessive patterns, and that’s how we wrote songs like “Acrobata” or “Prove d’esistenza/Il gesto”. It’s an instrument I’m still getting to know, unlike the Juno 60, which I’ve owned for about 15 years (though I’m still exploring its full expressive potential). Generally speaking, I need to work with just a few instruments at a time and get a feel for each one. It can take me years. And that’s fine with me.

The album seems to balance opposites: intimacy and distance, acoustic and electronic sound, human voices and machine-like rhythms. Tracks such as “Come un riflesso” even suggest a dialogue between progressive rock traditions and more contemporary electronic forms. How do you negotiate these contrasts when composing together?

Vittoria: The contrast between acoustic and electronic elements comes quite naturally from the different musical worlds our instruments belong to. Even though Francesca knows the language of rock music very well, in this duo she mostly plays synthesizers and electronic instruments. Our process sometimes begins with improvisation: we play together until we find a cell, a pattern, or an interaction that feels interesting enough to develop into a composition.

“Come un riflesso” is a good example of this approach. The track originated from an improvisation in the studio while we were recording the album. Francesco Donadello, our producer, added a tape delay to my drums, and I was hearing both the acoustic drum sound and the delayed signal in my headphones as I played. It felt almost like a conversation between me and the machine, between a physical gesture and its transformed reflection. Later, Francesca added those strange, alienated voices that I love so much, creating yet another layer of dialogue within the piece. In the end, the song became a meeting point between different worlds, acoustic and electronic, human and mechanical, spontaneous and manipulated. Rather than choosing one or the other, we’re interested in the space where these elements overlap and generate something unexpected.

The closing sequence—particularly “Oltre le palpebre” and “Lonely Blue Star”—has a very different emotional character from the darker, more tense material earlier in the album. The image of the “lonely blue star” itself is fascinating: a rare celestial object that somehow survives beyond its expected lifespan. What significance does that image hold for you, and did you conceive the album as moving toward a particular emotional or narrative resolution?

Francesca: I believe we had a clearer idea of the kind of narrative resolution we wanted to achieve as we were progressing the recordings of the tracks. We recorded more material than what eventually made it to the final version, and one thing we were quite sure about was that the title track would serve as the album’s opening track and “Lonely Blue Star” the closing chapter. It’s about something that can be a long way away and still remain visible, like a star in the sky. From the lake (that can also be a metaphor for our own boundaries, imposed or self-imposed) we wanted to look up. All stars go through life cycles, as we do. It’s all about transcendence, malancholy and mystey. Music as a spiritual quest.

Vittoria: Yes, the last two tracks are intended to conclude the record in a peaceful and calmer way. Especially in “Lonely blue star” I can feel this kind of abandon, when the rhythmic drum pattern stops and leaves musical space for more percussive and distended drums, melancholic lines of synth and classical guitar.

(Gianmarco Del Re)