Classically trained pianist and keyboardist Fabio Anile has taken the uphill woodwork with absolute astonishment when it comes to his compositions. According to his bandcamp website, his music can be defined either as classical, ambient, atmospheric film style soundtracks, minimalism, or rock music. Fabio has never backed down when it comes to collaborations such as Michael Peters, Dennis Kuhn, Gianluca Palmiere, Roberto Ferruccio “Jonny” Nicosanti, Salvo Lazzara, and Luca Pietropaoli.
But one of the most important collaborations he has worked on is Fractal Sextet which consists alongside Fabio, but Porcupine Tree alumni Colin Edwin, Sonar’s Stephan Thelen, Andi Pupato, Jon Durant, and Yogev Gabay. But, now in 2026, Fabio has continued to push his musical form even further going back to his roots in the mid-1990s with the release of his new album Minutiae.
Released on the RareNoise label, Minutiae is built around a minimal rhythmic core, serving as a generator of complex structures. It becomes this minimalist lore where Anile puts his heart and mind into those textures by taking it a step further into the void. And to be allowed to have musicians such as double bassist Keith Lowe and drummer Agostino Marangolo on the album, along with five electric guitarists ranging from Stephan Thelen, Bernhard Wagner, Jon Durant, Michael Peters, and Samuel Hällkvist, followed by bassist Fabio Trentini on the album, they know that this is going to be the adventure of a lifetime.
This captures an intense atmosphere in which we see the trio in free ranging forms with a leading sculpture brought to life as they take on the intense flamenco arrangement on the opening track ‘Compas’. With its Latin beat, the trio get down to business in the heart of the vibrant Tango, outside of Madrid in the middle of a hot, warming summer that’ll make you go for this challenging exercising music in a way the trio bring the house down in the arrangements they pull.
Anile pulls out the sampled marimba for the ‘Dance’ to begin as he brings out the shakers, almost bossa-nova like piano groove, it develops a percussion instrumental vibration that was done originally by the Mannheimer Schlagwerk, conducted by Dennis Kuhn. Listening to ‘Mysterious Counterpoint’ you feel as if Fabio has tackled himself into doing an alternate score to one of the Fleischer cartoon shorts; The Cobweb Hotel or The Fresh Vegetable Mystery.
Its raw, ominous, yet fierce undertaking in a way Lowe using his bow to create the droning sequence on his double bass, leading Fabio with his shakers and Agostino creating this John Densmore-like background that uses the Bossa-Nova arrangement to work out for the train to come at a complete halt before it chugs along to reach its climatic end.
‘More than 12’ which channels a complete image of Anile’s piano contribution, leading into this nightmarish sequence featured in the 1936 short Play Safe where the little boy dreams about being on a real train but it turns out to be a terrifying nightmare. And that’s where Fabio envisions the Color Classic short with its surreal quality, synchronizing the imagery and the danger of riding a train that can be dangerous and can be a huge reality check of what you see is not like you see in the movies.
There are moments where Fabio channels the styles of Mike Garson’s work which is featured on Bowie’s work from the title-track of ‘Aladdin Sane’, the Outside album, and bits of Radiohead’s Kid A thrown into the mix. That’s how serious he gets when Michael Peters lays down the law with his electric guitar, howling off into the night like a wolverine whose high on angel dust!
Hällkvist comes into the painting once ‘Planet Nine (Orbits)’ begins to shift gears and head towards into the cosmos. He offers this loop-like structure in where he does this chutes and ladders-like approach by going up and down the frets like crazy, seeing where Fabio wants him to head into his piano. That’s how they get down to business by going beyond our solar system.
But it’s the 10-minute improvisation ‘Shifting Trains’ where Thelen, Wagner, Durant, and bassist Trentini come into play. Here, it sounds like Fractal Sextet all over again where the quintet continued where they left off on the had left off from the self-titled 2022 and the Sky Full of Hope album from 2024.
There’s a lot of the jazz-inspired fusion, eerie soundscapes, very Crimson-sque vibrations coming into the ebb and flow, and allowing each of the players to have massive amounts of carte blanche to stretch it out more with their improvisations. That is how incredible each of the musicians bring in their “In-game” to the centerfield by laying down the law on how experimental they can really get.
With the classical, minimal, and experimentation’s flowing on Minutiae, Anile has completed his mission to a vast success. And we got to experience the journey in all of its tremendous glory.
