Best of ONQ
ONQ: The Supreme Weight (CD 2001, OuZel Records OUZ 19)
This CD can be ordered directly from the label.

It's warm autumn days outside, but the nights are pretty chilly already. ONQ's music is characterised by the same contrasts: warm melodies that chill your heart with the immense power of longing that can be heard in them. Or perhaps it's the cool, clean/flanged guitar sounds that enflame your soul? On the CD The Supreme Weight, ONQ's latest release as far as I know (given his immense productivity, he has probably released half a dozen other tapes or CDs by the time I write this, though), the sound is more hi-fi than on many previous recordings: the material, taken from earlier ONQ releases, was recorded on a digital 8-track machine. This and the fact that it's not the intimate face to face encounter with the man and his guitar alone, but rather an album by a band (with Mauro Costagli from The Colours Seen From Behind playing drums and accordion), probably add to the rather 'cooler' feel of the sound textures. (More than ever, the guitars are reminiscent of early 80s wavepop like the Cure's Seventeen Seconds album, for example.)
Which makes this 10-song album not only perfect autumn, but winter music as well. A health warning may be in place here: Don't allow your tears to freeze up whilst listening as this may cause serious skin damage. In order to ensure this, a strangely exhilarating track featuring Jacopo Andreini and his brass band Fartfara has been added to the more ONQ-like arrangements: Here Come the Nostrils sounds like a previously undiscovered out-take from Tom Waits's Rain Dogs.