Fabio Mina uses his flute as a playground. The Rimini-born musician’s compositions grow from improvisations on his instrument that flit from ruminative melodies to breathy rhythms to dance beats. With Existence / Resistance, made in collaboration with producer Manuel Volpe, Mina presents a survey of his genre-blending, exploratory style in ten compositions inspired by the current of wind and the ideas of freedom and resistance. It is, at its heart, a showcase of the many different textures and techniques possible on the flute in conversation with techno-ambient electronics.
Existence / Resistance comes at a time in which the flute is reaching peak popularity. Andre 3000’s oft-discussed new age flute album New Blue Sun was just nominated for a Grammy; former Sons of Kemet member Shabaka Hutchings has pivoted from his saxophone to the feathery flute with his 2024 acclaimed album, Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace. Like Mina’s Existence / Resistance, these albums exemplify the softness of the flute, using it as a vehicle for meditation and peaceful solitude in a time of turbulence. But besides all following similar meditative musical spaces, these albums serve as a way of bringing the instrument into new musical contexts.
Mina has been experimenting on the flute for more than a decade, during which he has honed his craft in blurring folk, rock, electronic, and classical genres. Existence / Resistance feels like a culmination of that work and a means of showcasing his exploratory approach to texture. The album’s best tracks channel Mina’s wind inspiration into breathy sonic palettes that slowly build. ‘Noi’ grows from a bouncy rhythm, gradually layering in deep, airy melodies that feel like gusts as they blow past; ‘Dune’ mixes shallow breaths with gentle, rounded tones that layer into lattices. Elsewhere, like on ‘Ali’, vibrating beats overpower the flute, and fast-paced melodies take away from the music’s pleasant, delicate motion. Those electronics-focused tracks obscure the album’s centerpiece – the flute and all its possibilities.
There’s something enticing about taking an instrument with a long tail of history, like the flute, and asking what’s left to do with it. Many seem to see the instrument as a tool for contemplation and Mina’s music embraces that, too. But what’s most interesting is his nuanced approach to playing – the way his flute technique shapeshifts across tracks, fitting into whatever space it goes, as malleable as the wind. In its subtleties, Existence / Resistance quietly harnesses, and celebrates, the power of the flute.
