Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There is mystery far beyond our vision, our minds forever searching for something tangible to believe in, something that cannot be ridiculed by detractors, that cannot be explained away as the fleeting glimpse of fancy or hidden away from plain sight; the unexpected is beautiful and must be observed and cherished as much as the delight in a Daylight Moon.
There is a feeling of universal misrule, a mistake in the heavens when a moon can be seen riding the coattails, bumper to bumper with the sun, it is the same in artistic music when a collection of songs makes its way into the warmth when the formation of a vacuum had started to appear; universal misrule, cosmos heaven, it is if they are chasing each other round until someone like Ezio shows them how to stop feeling overwhelmed.
The richness of the album is in its depth, its concentration of will to get several messages across, a risky venture in some quarters but one that as a whole works completely. It is if the unheralded muse has always been obscured, hidden away by the night time and yet as the natural satellite of Earth makes its way into the spotlight, into the vision of those who marvel at such occurrences, the muse is let loose and allowed to wander freely in the heat of the sun.
It is in the sharpness of musical responses that the comic dance between sun and moon/musician and listener, plays out and for Ezio it is a dance of various movements, one guided by the amusement of the aforesaid muse. In tracks such as Indian, Dirty Little Secret, Been A Long Time Coming and No Time For You, Ezio maintain a link to what was affectionately known as the Cambridge and the Canterbury scene, a folk renaissance of light and reflection, of unswerving loyalty to getting the dreamlike passage across.
Daylight Moon is the product of listening to the universal, of harbouring the truth and allowing it to be seen in the most unexpected of places; a set of songs that are as wonderful as seeing the moon whilst the sun is at play.
Ezio comes to Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall’s Music Room on March 16th.
Ian D. Hall