Ivan Comar and Gabriele Saro’s collaborative single “Open Your Eyes”

Strutting to a groove as sly as it is intriguingly exotic, Ivan Comar and Gabriele Saro’s collaborative single “Open Your Eyes” starts to fill the air around us with a supple harmony. The vocals are as soft as silk, the beat sturdy and formidable, and their interplay forms the backbone for every cathartic moment in the song. The synthesized parts of the melody are charming, but not nearly as evocative as the acoustic guitar strumming that lies behind the wall of bass in the master mix. This beefy bassline acts as a sort of cushion for every word Saro will sing here, but even at its most monolithic in shape, it never penetrates the stylish tone of our singer and the instrumental canvas she uses to paint us a picture.

BANDCAMP: https://gabrielesaro.bandcamp.com/album/ivan-comar-gs-music-of-the-sea-publishing-chicago-los-angeles

There’s so much swing in “Open Your Eyes” that it’s next to impossible to listen to the track without wanting to synchronize your hips to its lighthearted rhythm. Saro’s voice is the perfect linchpin here, and not only because of its flexibility. By forging her executional style to match the heavy thrust of the percussion behind her, she turns her voice into as much of a sonic weapon as any of the other instruments in the mix are. Pop is all about detail these days, and when it comes to fine-tuning a piece of music, Gabriele Saro makes a strong case for her being at the forefront of the Italian underground in this amazing new single.

The other half of the Comar/Saro collaboration comes in “Like Paparazzi Flashes,” which sees Ivan Comar handling all of the lead vocal duties himself. His voice is quite different from Saro’s in that it’s naturally surreal – at the 1:08 mark in the song, when the verses plunge asunder alongside the bassline, his singing remains dreamy even as the instrumentation falls into harmonized chaos. He’s got so much self-control and precision discipline here, and being that he’s a relative newcomer to most stateside audiences, one can’t help but acknowledge all of the possibilities that lie ahead of him with a talent as powerful as his is. It’s on full display for everyone to appreciate in “Like Paparazzi Flashes,” and it’s made me very interested in hearing more of his work in the future.

APPLE MUSIC: https://music.apple.com/us/album/open-your-eyes-single/1497936897?i=1497936902&ign-gact=3&ls=1

I wasn’t very familiar with Ivan Comar or Gabriele Saro prior to getting my hands on a copy of “Open Your Eyes” and “Like Paparazzi Flashes” just recently, but I think they’re on to something incredible with the release of these two songs. In the last few years, there have been quite a few acts in both the United States and Europe that have vigorously tried to develop an infused sound not dissimilar to the one this pair is working with at the moment, but I can’t say that I’ve heard any who have sounded quite as on-point as Comar and Saro do here. Simply put, they both deserve to be on your radar if you follow the independent pulse on an international level.

Mark Druery

The music of IVAN COMAR & GABRIELE SARO has been heard all over the world in partnership with the radio plugging services offered by Musik and Film Radio Promotions Division.  Learn more https://musikandfilm.com