Federico Albanese’s third album – the Italian composer’s most ambitious, and perhaps most serene – begins with a piece entitled ‘682 Steps’, inspired by a path that runs from his mother’s house to a rock by the sea, a place which holds a certain resonance for him. Why, he won’t say: just because a piece of music has no lyrics doesn’t mean it’s less personal, and this is as personal as it gets. “It’s pretty much me,” Albanese in fact says, “translated into music.” But a clue to the composition’s significance lies in the album’s title: this rock, he says, “is also where I imagined Lord Byron writing his poem ‘The Sea’.” The poem is notable for its juxtaposition of concepts centered around ideas of society and solitude, and for acknowledging the pleasure of pursuing routes others have not. It’s a fitting source for the album’s title: these are themes familiar to Albanese, who wrote the music over “a year in which a lot happened, stuff that’s difficult to explain. These twelve songs are moments that needed to be described. Music is the vehicle I’ve chosen to express my deepest feelings, the ones that, even to me, are difficult to understand.” By The Deep Sea exhibits some of his work’s richest instrumentation. Naturally, Albanese – who produced the album– provides its crucial instrument, piano, as well as Rhodes piano, synthesisers, Hammond organ, electric, acoustic and bass guitars, plus field recordings. “All albums are personal in a way,” Albanese concludes, “but BY THE DEEP SEA really tells the story of an inner space buried in a deep self.” Without doubt his most accomplished work to date, it insists on full immersion.