Torii

‘The psychedelic pop of Dutch quintet Torii seems to deftly breeze by without a care in the world: warm, wistful and weightless. Multiple listens to the band’s debut LP Return To Form (due February 2020 on Mink Records), however, reveal a stark antithesis of that snap judgment: each one of these eleven tracks was written, composed and recorded with painstaking, deliberate care. Founder Domenico Mangione transmutes troubled feelings of trauma, lonesomeness, and alienation into his intricate, spectral production values.

Torii started as a solo project that found Mangione demoing tracks in an abandoned school building. This rather desolate scenery, plus the screeching of the seagulls that terrorized the area, provided the perfect echo chamber for the Dutch musician &amp; producer to find his definitive voice, at his desired pace. Soon after releasing <a href="spotify:album:2dZt3iL5PwTTE6EFRwYnZ7" data-name="Submerged">Submerged</a>, the band played critically-renowned festivals and venues, namely Paradiso, Vera, De School, Incubate, Grasnapolsky and Le Guess Who?.

Now a steady five-piece ensemble, Torii began using Mangione’s free-spirited recording methods as the root for fully-realized studio splendor, giving themselves ample time to blur the sharp frontiers in skill and philosophy. Each musician handled Return To Form’​s makeup with kid gloves, harvesting wayward sounds in meticulous fashion.

Words by Jasper Willems.