During the last year I've been reviewing at least three Ripabelli's releases and I've seen him once live, funny since despite the fact I happened to hear and read his name mentioned several times I didn't know how he sounded like or anything else about him and all of a sudden one listening after the other. This italian artist is quite well known for his activities in the dark ambient-post-industrial esoteric scene and I'm sure you will agree it emerges also by the musical aesthetic of his works. The positive thing about is works is that he's an incredible taste and he's far from the flashy of the genre, another great quality of his solo releases his the great sound quality of his productions so please don't mix him with many lo-quality sci-fi esoteric new-jacks dealing with power-noise or with the dark ambient thing. "Metamorphic Portrait" has been released with sound sources recorded in the lower Nasilica of Assisi and take for granted the esoteric factor of the whole cd is high on top, but as the artist himself writes in the line note of the release that's part of his personal research and explains the enormous religious feel of which this work is imbued. Despite some characteristic dark ambient sound and distortion I will somehow recognize in other works with the moniker K11, this cd is characterized by a large use of delays and echoes and by many vocal sound, gregorian chants, vocal singing and ancient ritual singing like that, but don't think it may resemble Rison D'Etre, everything is less clean, the original shape of the vocals drifts ashore and in some traces they've been submerged by some power distorsions that after a while live space to what sounds like an organ. The cocktail ends sounding really esthetic which is something that definitely lacks to many releases like that, plus you have to consider Ripabelli really knows how to build an emphatic and interesting structure fo tracks like those contained in this cd. If you've never gave him a listen maybe it's time to check how he sounds like.