reviews

___reviews

_____On Bowindo

_____3/4HadBeenEliminated -st-

_____Ielasi/Rinaldi -Oreledigneur-

_____Sciajno/Prins -The D&B Album-

_____Bosetti/Vowinckel -Charlemagne...-

_____Valerio Tricoli -Did They? Did I?-

_____Elio Martusciello -Aestethics of the Machine-

___on Bowindo

visit wwww.sands-zine.com for a long article on bowindo (in italian only).

[...] exciting electronica from a label which is voicing some intriguing explorations into experimental electronic music. Jeremy Keens, Ampersand Etc.,October 2003.

Bowindo: quando i suoni si affacciano all'arte. di Francesca Bellino.
Bowindo è una neonata etichetta italiana. Promuove e produce musica sperimentale, elettroacustica e acusmatica di compositori (per ora Martusciello, Tricoli, Bosetti, Sciajno, Ielasi) che lavorano con il suono in tutti i caratteri che esso potenzialmente vorrebbe sviluppare e con tutti i rischi che tale approccio comporta.
I rischi, diciamolo subito, sono connessi al fatto che si tratta di musica tecnologica di ricerca che si concretizza in una forma d'arte sonora. Ciò significa che mettendosi nella prospettiva di chi compone, il CD è un percorso, uno tra i possibili, quello immaginato, sondato, realizzato. Per chi ascolta, il CD è però un'opera conclusa, ma aleatoria, soggetta pertanto a innumerevoli interpretazioni che nascono e muoiono nella sensibilità di chi ascolta.
La fruizione di tale musica - che nella sua pratica mantiene tutti i connotati della perfomance [su traccia] - a posteriori è ardua, ostica, quasi ai limiti della comprensibilità per chi non ne sia già allenato. Allontanandoci dalle organizzazioni sonore più astratte si entra in territori di confine, estremi direbbe qualcuno, dove l'estremo non è rumore, nè tantomeno silenzio. L'estremo per pardosso diventa il suono stesso, la nozione che di esso si ha, l'approccio del compositore sulle parti che lo compongono.
L'approccio a questi quattro CD non è facile e non va minimamente semplificato perché ogni singolo disco non è che una piccola parte di un tutto che andrebbe seguito nel suo itinere teoretico e poi meccanico. Teniamo presente, infatti, che sulla traccia del CD si trovano stratificate fasi di lavoro diverse (contemporanee e no). In alcuni casi i suoni provengono dallo sfioramento, dalla percussione, dalla rottura di oggetti a cui sono apposti microfoni. In altri casi, sono la risultante di flussi manipolati. Nella traccia audio del CD, tutto si deposita come si trattasse di un crogiulo che accoglie e mescola alchimie. Questa mescola alchemica avviene grazie a sintetizzatori e live electronics, cioè all'utilizzo in tempo reale di programmi e strumenti elettronici che intervengono sui suoni (strumentali e no) provenienti da più periferiche. L'intervento diretto agisce su tutti i parametri del suono. Il fenomeno fisico-acustico risultante viene poi proiettato nello spazio [e nella traccia audio].
Detto questo, come comunicare il contenuto dei CD in questione? Ripetiamo che la problematicità e il senso di una loro recensione non va assolutamente sottovalutato perché bisogna essere consapevoli di compiere una operazione d'astrazione e d'interpretazione del percorso di ciascun compositore, operazione senza dubbio opinabile e se vogliamo superflua. Si introducono necessariamente metafore (estremi, esplorazioni, crogiuoli e quant'altro), dove i tanti e diversi limiti difficilmente spiegabili - con i quali tuttavia i compositori si confrontano - cercano aiuto in parole del senso comune. Tutto per rendere più vicine esperienze che rimangono ancora troppo lontane. E proprio in questa spaccatura insanabile tra fermento teorico da una parte e senso comune dall'altra affondano ancora incomprensioni e diffidenze che circondano i protagonisti di questi lavori nell'odierna Italia. Qui si lavora ai margini, in un territorio estraneo (e a forza estraniato) dal sentire la musica oggi. Non resta che constatare - non senza una profonda amarezza - che tali lavori sembrano destinati a fissarsi come fossero oggetti e prodotti d'avanguardia, purtroppo più utili alla critica, che al fare cultura. Il primo CD prodotto dalla label Bowindo, è forse il più radicale. Aestethics of the Machine, spiega Elio Martusciello, "è un esperimento che potrebbe essere definito come il punto d'ascolto della macchina". Il campo di frequenza audio di questo lavoro si spinge oltre le possibilità percettive dell'ascoltatore, volutamente. Si lavora con frequenze ultrasoniche (sopra i 20.000 Hertz) e infrasoniche (sotto i 16 Hz). I suoni prodotti nel CD sono generati al massimo volume consentito dal sistema digitale (OdB). Un gioco audace sulla definizione classica di "fortissimo" che qui perde ogni suo reale punto di riferimento (e senso). Da questa provocazione nasce un lavoro di paradossale bellezza: in uno spazio compositivo totalmente saturo ("totalmente sonoro, anche se oltre le nostre possibilità d'ascolto") si generano vuoti, nicchie, strappi in cui pare che tutto imploda nel silenzio. Falso, perché in queste volute depressioni sonore, scaturite dalle interferenze, dalle collisioni e dagli urti delle iperfrequenze, nasce una sorta di suono nuovo. Inconstintente e fragile. Violento e tagliente.
Cinque tracce che, nelle parole di Martusciello, cercano di rispondere a una concreta logica radicale e a una sorta di purismo elettronico: "in questo lavoro quanto si ascolta è il punto d'incontro violento (urto, collisione) tra l'uomo e la macchina che guida l'ascoltatore in una zona d'ascolto, spettrale e disturbante, che in definitiva non è solo all'interno della mente e del pensiero, ma anche un prodotto" . Il suono conturba, confonde e disturba con una radicalità difficilmente toccata prima di questa esperienza. I diciannoveminutiediciannovesecondi di Valerio Tricoli partono laddove Martusciello ci deposita. In una zona d'ascolto totalmente altra. Tricoli interferisce sui suoni prodotti da oggetti, voci lontane, situazioni in dissolvenza, amnesie e improvvisi ritorni di memoria. La traccia cristallizza pulviscoli di memoria dove tutto si fonde (rumori, movimenti nello spazio, voci, suoni, melodie mai intonate) ma dove tutto viene inesorabilmente sfocato. Nella zona emergono di continuo scoppiettanti schegge di vita, di oralità, di quotidianità. Emblematico è il grido del bimbo: quando per un attimo si pensa a una voce venuta a quietarlo, rompe il suono cupo, metallico, e tutto ancora sprofonda lontano. Tricoli conduce la propria musica come una barchetta alla deriva, lenta nell'infittirsi dei misteri che la circondano. La sonorità è un battito discontinuo che fa oscillare la barchetta, crepitano le onde nell'avvicinarsi della fine, ma ancora e sempre angosciantemente oscilla la barchetta. Mondo esteriore (did they?) e mondo interiore (did i?) scompaiono: una lunghissima ghost track ci scaraventa nel solo pulviscono di materia celebrale rimastaci. Da quel punto pulviscolare partono il sassofonista Alessandro Bosetti e la radio performer Antje Vowinckel. Charlemagne, la vue attaché sur son lac de constance, amoreux de l'abime caché - titolo rebus - si snoda in tre percorsi (i primi due a firma di Boselli, il terzo della Vowinckel) dove a differenza di quanto prima ascoltato si fa largo uso del silenzio, della pausa, della sospensione.
Il primo percorso elettroacustico sviluppa inizialmente una pulsazione, lenta e frammentaria, dipanandola in una narrazione acida che alterna frammenti di una voce femminile che scandisce nomi di isole a ritmi di un nuovo tribalismo elettroacustico. Il fantomatico periplo tra isole ("Sardinia and Japan are Islands") gonfia il suono dandogli il colore della vertigine. Con il trascorrere dei minuti lo espande sulla traccia, metabolizzandolo infine in un sibilo sinistro. Il secondo percorso alettroacustico, "Kitchen Piece", sviscera in quasi ventritre minuti una dimensione dell'interiore. Fasci sonori vengono pungulati da "misurate" interferenze. I canali di flusso si aprono e si chiudono, alternando di volta in volta il parametro del carattere da modificare. Chiude un gioco di acuti, proiettati nell'etere come una costellazione. Il terzo percorso, "NIPPS", è un pezzo composto da Antje Vowinckel. Aperto da un lungo passaggio strumentale di suoni metallici e di vibrazioni sinistre, il suono prende poi voci che esplodono a botti, pulsano, gridano. The detb album: documenta la collaborazione tra il contrabbassista Do Shine'o (aka Sciajno) qui "real time computer processing" e Prinsjan (aka Gert-Jan Prins) "electronics, fm/am modulations". I cinque pezzi che scaturiscono dall'incontro sono decisamente interessanti. Tecniche diverse dei due si fondono, bilanciandosi ma anche contraddicendosi, annullandosi, zittendosi, cozzando l'una contro l'altra. Questo lavoro si costruisce attorno un'intelaiatura concettuale forte, caratteristica che segna un po' la ricerca dei due performer qui in gioco. Con una consapevole padronanza di mezzi, il prodotto finale (l'opera di cui si parlava) pare tentare il recupero di sonorità (quali?), che gioco forza distorce una volta carpite (come le modulazioni di frequenza radiofonica). La sonorità "recuperata" -pur conservando ampissime oscillazioni di frequenze e dissonanze oltremodo lontane dal comune sentire musica- risulta fluida, meno spigolosa e onirica di quelle precedentemente viste, più concreta e schietta.
Le sonorità di questi quattro lavori trascinano, o meglio sbalzano, in una dimensione unica, pulviscolare, dove le infinitesime particelle (frequenze) che compongono e costruiscono il suono medesimo diventano materia grezza e ruvida da scolpire. Ponete dunque il vostro CD nel lettore, lavorate sull'amplificatore fino ad ottenere il compromesso acustico a voi più gradito. Di quanti più canali potete disporre è meglio. A voi tutto il resto, la musica - ruvida e complessa - ma le contraddizioni travolgono comunque.
Valutazione: * * * * (una media di tutto, teoria e prassi)Francesca Bellino

___3quarters Had Been Eliminated (bowindo06)

"This awkwardly named ensemble is the collaboration between three of Bowindo's central players and co-founders, Stefano Pilia, Claudio Rocchetti, and Valerio Tricoli. The latter's Did They Did I? is one of the young label's best releases so far, and his comrades are no strangers within the budding Italian scene, Pilia with a CDR of beautiful droning guitar pieces on the Last Visible Dog label and Rocchetti with at least one lauded recording as Kitano. And while it might not be appropriate to call this disc the work of a "supergroup," as the sixth and latest Bowindo release it feels, at least, like the label's first truly essential product, the trio matching each other's talents to create a seven-part cycle of radiant acoustic imagery. 3/4HadBeenEliminated's 45 minutes unfurl in a graceful, gripping sweep that combines the Italians' tendencies towards lyrical improvisation and colorful electroacoustics, with a grounding in the kind of baroque assemblage techniques championed by people like Dean Roberts and Jim O'Rourke. It is a roomy collage of found sounds, entranced piano and strings, featherweight percussion, and the small-yet-tactile electronic manipulations most Bowindos manage with the such grace. Whole tracks are swallowed within drones of unquenchable warmth, carryovers from Pilia's Healing Memories record but without as grand a presentation, suggesting rather the distant, saturated golds of a Klimt painting. As with previous Bowindo releases, field recordings get incorporated in such a way that they guide or introduce certain portions of the piece rather than float along as surface filler, a subtle but effective way of carving an environment from the work itself. The result is the same kind of unreal ambience labelmate Guiseppe Ielasi regularly produces, an unpredictable landscape that reveals, only in afterthought (or aftershock), the rigorous method of its creation. At points during the disc a beautiful chamber ensemble emerges, picking apart minimal, plaintive lines, as if at the cue of a particular broken glass or cheap electronic whine. The effect of this invented troupe of players, slinking ghostly between so many golden guitar drones, sheets of harmonium haze, and assorted earthen resonance, only to appear with the arbitrary quickness of a twig snapping underfoot, is simply breathtaking, many listens over. "Bedrock" travels from a tender, big-band shuffle sounding almost like the Bad Seeds at their most sublime, to a lengthy area of abrasive shatter and pop, garage ambience that still manages to feel like just another station along the disc's narrative. When the associative strains of guitar and percussive foundations disappear, more discrete patterning of electrical hums, engine turnovers, and minor tape treatments become attempts at maintaining the momentum and sonic density of a particular moment, a method aimed at continuity rather than clash, and one that helps to create an incredibly fluid sound-world, full of juxtapositions, but ones which provide an indecisive magical middle passage. It's rare that works this complex also succeed in feeling as direct, regardless of particular directives changing with each listen, a compliment that can be paid to most of the Bowindo/Fringes releases I've heard. Discovering this label has been a joy, and both of its 2004 releases will rank among my favorites for the year." Andrew Culler, Brainwashed.com

[...] Instead of worrying about which shelf to put it on, enjoy the album's many irresistibly beautiful moments, from the gentle triple time guitar chipped away by field recordings on "The soul of the suits" - maybe that's the 3/4 that has been eliminated - via the distant children's voices and drones of "Memory Man" to the disarmingly simple acoustic balladry that closes "My smallest ego." For some reason, Gastr del Sol comes to mind. Don't be fooled though into thinking it's a turn-on-tune-in-switch-off thing: there are plenty of odd twists and turns - the disconcerting thuds and rips in "Bench / Frozen" are superb - the most surprising perhaps being the appearance of a real twanging binary groove in "Bedrock". But of course it doesn't end up going where you'd expect it to - the final minutes of the album sound like someone smashing up an abandoned warehouse. Fascinating, inscrutable and highly recommended. Dan Warbourton, Paris Transatlantic

"3/4 HadBeenEliminated is a trio formed by Stefano Pilia (a solo cd on Last Visible Dog), Claudio Rocchetti (two releases on Bar La Muerte - see archive - and S'Agita) and Valerio Tricoli (a cd on Bowindo, plus collaborations and productions with Dean Roberts etc.). Not sure about who plays what, but listed sources are "guitars, harmonium, double bass, percussion, glass harmonica, resonant pipes, objects, turntables, synthesizer, tapes, electronics, field recordings", with help from Antonio Albanese (percussion and glass harmonica) and Tony Arrabito (drums). I regret not having seen 3/4... in one of their recent tour dates, because they must be pretty explosive live. This eponymous cd has its better moments when the electroacoustic scrabblings, the gigantic harmonium drones and some serene, almost bucolic guitar strumming converge: tracks like "Getsemany Fields under impossible rain", "The soul of their suits" and "Bedrock" are nothing short of moving. Strangely enough, I always get the impression that this is a quiet cd - on the contrary, 3/4...'s intimism also has its psychic black holes, like the ominous, monumental drone of "My smallest ego" and the electronic hoarfrost of "Bench/Frozen". But the trio has a somehow more humane, "folk" approach to minimalism and microsounds - there's often a feel of open spaces here. Great stuff indeed, also because it doesn't fossilize on a pre-digested set of sounds, but rather dares to fuck around and sweat on them. Along with the Dielectric Minimalist All Stars (with whom they share at least a similar approach to playing/recording), this is one of the best experimental releases that I've come across recently. A new cd is due out on S'Agita, and Logoplasm are definitely another valid "spiritual comparison" to 3/4...'s romantic electroacoustics.4 out of 5."Eugenio Maggi, Chaindlk.com

"A formare questo progetto dal nome quanto meno insolito, sono tre compositori italiani assurti alla ribalta nei circuiti dell’elettronica di ricerca per le ottime prove soliste da loro pubblicate lo scorso anno. Stefano Pilia, autore di "Healing memories in present tension" (Last Visibile Dog), Claudio Rocchetti, messosi in evidenza con "The work called Kitano" (Bar la Muerte) e Valerio Tricoli, la mente dietro "Did I? Did They?" (Bowindo) dimostrano nelle sette tracce di questo cd come anche in musica l’unione possa fare la forza, sovrapponendo le loro istanze particolari in modo del tutto integrato e compatibile. La fusione dei droni minimali in lenta evoluzione di Pilia, con i collage espressionisti di Rocchetti e le composizioni elettroacustiche di Tricoli genera una sorta di sinfonia elettronica in grado di gettare uno sguardo a tutto tondo sulle tendenze più recenti in ambito elettronico (e rock).
"Getsemany Fields", il primo brano, inizia con scariche di glitch che lasciano il posto a inquietanti sibili spettrali e a un finale serenamente disteso che introduce il brano successivo. “The Soul of their suits” è l’episodio più accessibile del disco, ma anche quello più sapientemente elaborato, nel quale entrano in gioco anche strumenti tradizionali, come un placido arpeggio acustico o un harmonium che si distende in un flusso sonoro in lenta modulazione. Questo strumento ritorna (forse) anche in “My smallest ego”, il pezzo che preferisco, un esperimento sulle trame sonore, un drone organico e monolitico che, per quanto mutuato dalla psichedelia shoegazing, se ascoltato a volume sostenuto, riesce ad elevarsi a una maestosità quasi wagneriana.
“Standing position” e “Bedrock” sono le composizioni che più di tutte si fondano sulla manipolazione di suoni concreti. Il secondo, soprattutto, con i suoi undici minuti di atmosfere ambientali, echi cosmici, scariche elettriche e vetri calpestati dimostra come sia possibile creare da fonti ostiche e devianti una forma musicale accessibile e articolata che coinvolga emotivamente l’ascoltatore. In questo mare di rumori molesti non identificati è proprio un intervallo di convenzionale folk-acustico il vero “ribelle”, fuori posto e disadattato, per quanto nella realtà dei fatti risulti perfettamente inserito nel suo “sistema” musicale.
In generale, a impressionare è la capacità degli autori di produrre materiali apparentemente imprevedibili, ma che dimostrano, ad un ascolto approfondito, un’attenta e calibrata costruzione. Ad essere determinanti per il valore di questo cd sono un approccio emotivo ai microsuoni e, ovviamente, una spiccata sensibilità nella loro sovrapposizione, a dimostrazione del fatto che possono cambiare gli stili e gli strumenti, ma ciò che fa la differenza tra buona e cattiva musica è sempre lo stesso." Massimiliano Osini, Rockit

[...]
The layered sounds is mixed at times with sweet guitar loops and interesting environmental backgrounds as heard in track two The soul of their suits. This track builds and builds on concrete sounds and drones into something quite unusual.
More experimental tracks are filled with small sounds and delicate tones as in track four Memory Man. This CD is not predictable at all. Most of what happens half way through a track is totally unexpected and often a pleasant surprise. The field recordings add a touch of the surreal to things.
Track five is possibly one of the most unusual with a build of sound eventually fading out and leading to what sounds like a couple of saxophones (although not listed) and somebody singing. Totally disjointed but clever and different.
Overall this is a very exciting mixture of everything you could and couldn¹t imagine. Truly unique. Phosphor Magazine

___Oreledigneur (bowindo05)

Translating as "hare's ears," "Oreledigneur" has become a blanket term to mark the assorted collaborative works of this duo, proprietors and key players of the Fringes/Bowindo cam, responsible for two of the more remarkable release schedules in improvised elecroacoustics to appear in recent years. Though it is their third album under the name, Oreledigneur is
the first produced by Giuseppe Ielasi and Renato Rinaldi alone, despite their countless outsourcing of material for labelmates' releases. Not only do the duo's friends feed happily off of their ever-expanding stockpile of skeletal acoustic ambience, field captures and intimate electronic scavenging, but the artists themselves draw from these private sessions to
fill gaps in their own solo work. A recent example would be Ielasi's Plans which uses generous helpings of Rinaldi's endlessly warm percussive meanderings and lush acoustic surface-testing to fill the gaps between the disc's more sculptural inclusions, like the cyclical guitar figures that help delineate the piece's turns. With such a picked-apart history, the
Oreledigneur sound might be tempting to describe as glamorized filler, as the yet-unrefined bursts of inspiration from these two stalwart sound explorers, rushed to tape in a frenzy and either given over to future improvements or left to stew in their own crudity. Luckily, Oreledigneur the album, while not without its rough edges, is no collection of throwaways.
Rinaldi and Ielasi have clearly taken time to blend and polish five concise statements of mission, each a distillation of the tensions the duo seems compelled to uphold, and of the surprisingly "available" emotional quotient of their work, solo and otherwise. True to the sensibilities of both artists, there is a constant dynamic between sounds with a genuine
"presence" or immediacy (often due to their connection with recognizable instrumentation or phenomena) and other sounds that appear as if glimpsed across a dreamy distance, suspended in the same near-nostalgic limbo that consumed Plans. Any sense of crudity in the music is likely an immediate response to the forced tension between the surface sounds, like the labored engine chugs or metallic patter that opens the disc, and the more opaque under-layers, the rich atmospherics flaking restlessly off Ielasi's brittle guitar or dropping from the great underwater bells and door-hinges that might now be signature Bowindo sounds. The effect of this kind of tension, rising as the disc progresses, is that the sounds more comfortably left half-filled-in, those shifting about with no clear resolution, become the ones that carry the greatest degree of emotive weight. The sense of longing
that these nebulous patches of chiming guitar and blooming analog fragments provoke seems somehow inappropriate in the face of the blank machine drones, everyday mechanics, and scattered street ambience that populate the foreground of Oreledigneur. The effected result, to borrow a phrase, is "nostalgia for nothing," emotion without center that shifts nervously, though sincerely, with each listen, guarded against sentimentality but always left somewhere, hanging. While the previous Oreledigneur productions offered similarly beautiful, barely-anywhere bits of ecstasy, neither came close to these trembling heights. - Andrew Culler

Oreledigneur, which is apparently Frioul dialect for "hare's ears" (now you know) is a duo featuring Giuseppe Ielasi and Renato Rinaldi "playing big and small objects and instruments", though for their now out-of-print first release on Ielasi's Fringes label a while back they were joined by Alessandro Bosetti (samples of another Oreledigneur recording made in a kitchen popped up on Bosetti's own Bowindo release Charlemagne, la vue attachée sur son lac de Constance, amoureux de l'abîme cachée). Like Ielasi's solo release Plans on Sedimental, the five (continuously running) tracks on Oreledigneur intentionally seek to blur the distinction between inside and outside, studio and field recording, improvisation and composition. So much so, and so successfully, that I'm at a loss whether to file the CD under "improvisation", "electronica" or "contemporary music" in my own ever more chaotic archiving system. Incidentally, if some of this sounds familiar, it's because some of Plans was based on Oreledigneur samples. Ielasi's guitar work sounds like a cross between Loren Connors and Keith Rowe, unashamedly diatonic but contentedly static, and drifts in and out of focus among looped clicks and clunks, fragments of conversation, what sounds like industrial ventilators, and, in the final section "recorded live in a garden", insects, passing aeroplanes, distant church bells and Stefano Pilia on double bass (hard to spot). Quite what the connection is between the music and the accompanying images of two men fencing on a deserted runway next to a space shuttle (is it?) taken from a book by Vincenzo Cabiati and Armin Linke called "Baikonur Cosmodrome" and presumably having something to do with the Soyuz space programme's old launch facilities at Tyuratam junction on the right bank of the Syr Darya River in Kazakhstan (honest injun - go Google), I don't know. It's one of the many mysteries of a haunting and evocative disc.Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic

More improvised is the CD by Giuseppe Ielasi and Renato Rinaldi. Ielasi you may know through his own Fringes label and Rinaldi released some music on Fringes. In this duet they play guitars treated in various ways (played with motors, conventionally played, and filtered via tapeloops), field recordings of all sorts and small percussion. Carefully they play around with this limited set of materials, but not like +Minus: Ielasi and Rinaldo do take risks at what they do. Peaceful strummings, the falling of objects and the soft rattle of contact microphones over surfaces. This is almost rock music less the rock and this almost singer-songwriter stuff less the singer. Delicate and intimate, but prepared to a risk or two. FdW, Vital Weekly

___The D&B Album -featuring Do Shine'o & Prinsjan- (bowindo04)

For The D&B Album Domenico Sciajno (pictured opposite) and Gert-Jan Prins bill themselves in time-honoured DJ style as "Do shine'o" and "Prinsjan", and indeed there are plenty of real woofer-fucking grooves on the opening "Cascocity"though they're often buried under piles of digital clutter. The outstanding recording, made at Amsterdam's STEIM in 2002, contains plenty of par-for-the-course ultra high frequencies, white noise screes and the like, plus Prins' trademark mangled TV and radio manipulations, but is remarkably listenable (for me at least). The five pieces each have a strong sense of structure and direction, from the serpentine anti-dub of "Diamonds will do" via the thudding motoric pulsing (high and low) of "Tablerock" to the vicious, rumbling roughing-up of snatches of FM radio on "Vinexology". Unlike the Bosetti album discussed above, listening to this one through headphones is a dumb idea; this one's for all the family. Unless Santa gave it you for Christmas, you'll have to get it as a New Year present, if such a thing exists. Great way to start the year, too. Happy New 2004 to everyone at Bowindo: I can't wait for the next instalment. Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic, January 2004

Improvisation musicians do listen to popmusic, techno and drum & bass, and some of them adopt a music style and pretend that they are doing the same thing. The Vacuum Boys for instance is such a band, pretending to be a real rock group, but in return just use powerbooks, guitars and electronics. Maybe it's there that Gert-Jan Prins, electronic specialist for the Vacuum Boys, got the idea to do a drum & bass album, with Domenico Sciajno. Sciajno plays real time computer processing and Prins the electronics and fm/am modulations. Despite the title, this music has nothing to do with drum and bass. It's an album filled with rhythms, cracklings,modulations, which indeed move over the entire sound spectrum - much low end and much high end -, just like drum & bass does, but this is high improvisation at work here. Prins sets the sounds, by twitching, turning and hitting his circuits and dailing his radio knobs, while Sciajno receives the sounds and twists the computer knobs up and distorts the whole thing a bit further. Well made improvised music that fits along the lines of labels such as Erstwhile and Grob, for those who take improvised music a bit futher. Frans de Waard in Vital Weekly

'The d&b album' is a glitch fest that offers passing reference to drum and bass – only really the title. On processing, electronics and fm/am Scianjo and Prins produce some vibrant electronica. 'Cascocity' shows the way with a combination of squeaks, scrapes and electro shlushes with some drum-like figures that builds and then chops, a futzy glitch rhythm with sqkyscrtchs in the second half. It is going to read oddly, but we continue in 'Stonone' passing from high tones with slowly developing soft sounds (cycles scrape hiss buzz) that starts to change as crackle and radio build, sweeps of tones, tweets, puttering – active and quite driving, almost noisey, crackle propelled.
Various tones develop through 'Diamonds will do', plus tapping and ringing, developing but gaining interference. Computer beepling, clicks, tone-notes, a slow groove, buzz crackling with radio later. In 'Tablerock' a farty-futz and soft whipping build, blowing pitters blurt scratchy, a deep pulsing drone driving the track onwards. Finally clickey interference, cycling and visceral scrapes in 'Vinexology' provide an edgy fast jumpy breaking down of voice and song. Jeremy Keens, Ampersand Etc., October 2003

Domenico Sciajno e Gert-Jan Prins, rispettivamente "real time computer processing" ed "electronics, fm/am modulations", realizzano un'opera molto fisica e dinamica: spruzzi e sbrotti di computer liberati come alte maree percussive da minimal techno essiccata e costipata (Cascocity, Tablerock), crescendo che invadono il territorio acustico per accumulazione (Vinexology, la bellissima Stonone) e pause meditative che dietro una sommessa matematica nascondono del jazz (Diamonds Will Do). La profonda sensibilità pop e la matrice "rock" che emergono prepotentemente tra le righe di questo bellissimo album ne fanno un disco consigliato non solo a chi segue e ama le diverse figliolanze di Ikeda ma anche a quanti solitamente frequentano territori distanti come la cosiddetta IDM e persino il noise rock, luoghi ai quali i due sembrano "naturalmente" portati e nei quali, mutati gli strumenti, si ritroverebbero quasi d'incanto (8). Stefano I. Bianchi, BlowUp, November 2003

The detb album: documenta la collaborazione tra il contrabbassista Do Shine'o (aka Sciajno) qui "real time computer processing" e Prinsjan (aka Gert-Jan Prins) "electronics, fm/am modulations". I cinque pezzi che scaturiscono dall'incontro sono decisamente interessanti. Tecniche diverse dei due si fondono, bilanciandosi ma anche contraddicendosi, annullandosi, zittendosi, cozzando l'una contro l'altra. Questo lavoro si costruisce attorno un'intelaiatura concettuale forte, caratteristica che segna un po' la ricerca dei due performer qui in gioco. Con una consapevole padronanza di mezzi, il prodotto finale (l'opera di cui si parlava) pare tentare il recupero di sonorità (quali?), che gioco forza distorce una volta carpite (come le modulazioni di frequenza radiofonica). La sonorità "recuperata" -pur conservando ampissime oscillazioni di frequenze e dissonanze oltremodo lontane dal comune sentire musica- risulta fluida, meno spigolosa e onirica di quelle precedentemente viste, più concreta e schietta. Francesca Bellino, Allaboutjazz

___Charlemagne, la vue attaché sur son lac de Constance, amoreux de l'abime caché (bowindo03)

There's nothing understated about the title of bosetti's electroacoustic album on the Bowindo label, wich translates as Charlemagne, His Gaze Fixed On His Lake Constance, In Love With The Hidden Depths. He splits the CD with antje Vowinckel, a star experimental playwright on German radio. Bosetti sets out two substantials compositions, where real sounds cohabit edgily with abstact electronics. Airless sinewaves sit next to subtle thunder and the delicate tapping of steel pans. Again, it's restrained music, though less so than his duo with Krebs. The first title, "Sardinia And Japan Are Islands", indicates a little exotica might be in order, and indeed we glimpse tropical birds as a woman's voice lists islands. Hoarse whistling eventually coalesce into a static landscape, like a panpipe hung out in the wind. Vowinckel's piece introduces jarring shocks, hearty shouts and metallic thumps that build up to peaks. It's a kind of storytelling in sound, yet it follows a standard electroacoustic brief too closely, hurring from one climax of digitally tortured material to another for no discernible reason. And given the several Japanese voices in the mix, possibly "NIPPS" was not the ideal title? Clive Bell, The Wire, November 2003

I am not sure why the two artists are combined on this disk, nor what the title means.
Alessandro Bosetti has the bulk of the disk. His 'Sardinia and Japan are islands' is a disjointed compendium – there are lots of short segments that run into each other – crackling then samples; tones and water drips, pops and crackles; soft pulses, high tones, flutters and crunches; soft rumble; pulse rattle/scrape moving around; high and low sines plus hiss drops to shimmer; voices, some in English listing islands, layered; tapping and shimmers. Building finally to a sine with taps that gets somewhat earsplitting and scrapey, wobbling then easing back. Disjointed but there is a flow and connection. His longer 'Kitchen piece' (22.5 minutes as against 18) is one of the growing number of culinary samples we have hears here (such as Sonic Catering last issue). As with Sardinia…' there is a particulate feel – the first two thirds works with little pieces, clattering, soft tones, scrapes, bowl-gongs, drains, frying and mechanical scuttering. In the final third this becomes an extended tonal play. War layered ones that roll along and subtly vary, with chimey rattles drifting between the fore and back ground before a pop-crack le final fade. Both works combine samples and manipulation creatively, and while not focussed or extended (other than the final parts in the kitchen) the details and flow are captivating.
'NIPPS' is 9.5 minute piece that is worth having in its own right, but sits strangely here – an unbalanced split disk. Antje Vowinckel opens it with an instrumental passage – scraped metal, twangs, messed piano and swirly tones chopped and build to a noise burst before easing to the second section. Here cycling, with some bloopytwangs and humm is a base for layered and chopped Dada-ish voice loops, almost a chant. A quieter passage as a cycle
becomes a panning hiss, breaths, builds and drops to another exciting voice passage, chopped and building, burbling and rolling before the too soon fade. A dramatic piece that pushes a lot into its short time. Jeremy Keens, Ampersand Etc.,October 2003

Having been inundated with requests for Best Of lists for 2003, I eventually got tired of the idea, though if anyone had asked me to name the new label of the year (as opposed to album) I would have nominated Bowindo without a moment's hesitation. Bowindo is, along with Giuseppe Ielasi's Fringes imprint that distributes it, arguably the best thing to come out of Italy since Luigi Nono. Each of the first four releases on the label is superbly recorded, beautifully packaged, and full to the brim with daring and accomplished new music.
Devotees of lowercase improvisation will no doubt already be familiar with the saxophone work of Alessandro Bosetti (now based in Berlin) through his appearances on notable albums of the genre on Potlatch and Grob. The intriguingly titled Charlemagne, la vue attachée sur son lac de Constance, amoureux de L'âbime [sic] caché, features two of his electroacoustic works, "Sardinia and Japan are Islands" and "Kitchen Piece", as well as a brief work, "NIPPS" by German experimental writer Antje Vowinckel. Bosetti's ear for detail is as acute as one would expect, though his two offerings may surprise listeners accustomed to the micro-inflections of his soprano sax or familiar with the austere electronics on his contribution to last year's Berlin Reeds on Absinth: there's a huge variety of sounds here, from (as you might expect from the title "Kitchen Music") domestic utensils to the spoken word ("Sardinia.." contains, at one point, a text about islands). Silence, though, plays an important structural role, and the nuances of Bosetti's mix are best appreciated in a quiet listening environment, or through headphones (quasi-obligatory these days in this apartment). Vowinckel's work - one might question whether its inclusion is necessary or not - is closer to traditional (whatever that means) models, but well crafted and interesting nonetheless. Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic, January 2004

[...] Charlemagne, la vue attaché sur son lac de constance, amoreux de l'abime caché - titolo rebus - si snoda in tre percorsi (i primi due a firma di Boselli, il terzo della Vowinckel) dove a differenza di quanto prima ascoltato si fa largo uso del silenzio, della pausa, della sospensione.
Il primo percorso elettroacustico sviluppa inizialmente una pulsazione, lenta e frammentaria, dipanandola in una narrazione acida che alterna frammenti di una voce femminile che scandisce nomi di isole a ritmi di un nuovo tribalismo elettroacustico. Il fantomatico periplo tra isole ("Sardinia and Japan are Islands") gonfia il suono dandogli il colore della vertigine. Con il trascorrere dei minuti lo espande sulla traccia, metabolizzandolo infine in un sibilo sinistro. Il secondo percorso alettroacustico, "Kitchen Piece", sviscera in quasi ventritre minuti una dimensione dell'interiore. Fasci sonori vengono pungulati da "misurate" interferenze. I canali di flusso si aprono e si chiudono, alternando di volta in volta il parametro del carattere da modificare. Chiude un gioco di acuti, proiettati nell'etere come una costellazione. Il terzo percorso, "NIPPS", è un pezzo composto da Antje Vowinckel. Aperto da un lungo passaggio strumentale di suoni metallici e di vibrazioni sinistre, il suono prende poi voci che esplodono a botti, pulsano, gridano. Francesca Bellino, Allaboutjazz

___Did They? Did I? (bowindo02)

Though he probably received more recognition last year for his production work on Dean Roberts' breathtaking Be Mine Tonight, Valerio Tricoli was also busy creating one of the more substantial musique concrète works I've heard in quite a while. The title alone should transmit the charm and the wayward beauty of this piece, its questions projecting both the violence of discovery and the resigned, rhetorical penance of shame and acceptance. Tricoli's music becomes the missing thought dots between these two inquisitives, a journey of self-reflection and detachment. Revealingly, a three-dotted reply was all that I, at least, could utter after sitting with the disc's 40+ minutes (advertised as only 19, another of Tricoli's warping tactics, anything but playful). The artist works outside of the hyper-lyrical or hyper-visceral styles that seem to dominate concrète practice these days; his removed approach places the music within memory's shadowy domain, distanced but strangely present, like a déjà vu experience. This is not audio-surrealism per say, but something more somber and gratingly nostalgic. The disc's first section could begin in the room of some shaky continental hotel, slowly and secretly colored in with disembodied hallway voices and the abrupt activity of antique door latches. The voices will continue throughout the piece, contributing more to a regenerating wave of commotion than any kind of foundation, thematic or at all grounding. The music rides this wave as aboard a virtual history of meaningless conversation, essential white noise against which all that is individual or discernable in the piece must be measured. There is certainly an individual, very human presence in this work, but one that seems always hidden, revealing itself gingerly though the segmented, even lush sounds of rustling and light knocking spaced across the whole. Tricoli also attaches some of his inventive melodic hesitations at points during the disc, via bell tones and steady, thin drones, shifting certain moments into sudden dramatic relief, as if caught in a cinematic lens. Did They? Did I? stays very much outside the listening space; this music enacts a quiet and impossible ambiance, capturing those subtle, telling degrees by which our memory is bound. It rises to shock only when cool and deceptive recovery is within reach and reveals only for seconds anything that could be called recognizable. - Andrew Culler

Did They? Did I?, by Bologna-based Valerio Tricoli, whose only released work prior to this was an untitled cassette outing with Ielasi on Freedom From, is a fascinating if enigmatic piece that, like its cover photography, plays with the idea of inside / outside. Or rather, foreground / background - Tricoli explores the idea of distance and depth (real, in the form of sounds occurring far from the mics - a distant police car siren - or illusory - sporadic and intentionally heavy of use of reverb) in a beautifully executed and constantly thought-provoking piece of work. The piece itself lasts 19'09", but the album displays a total duration of 41'08". At 20'21" a ghost track appears, in the form of a recording that has also apparently provided some source material for the preceding piece. It sounds as if Tricoli has hidden a Minidisc recorder inside a cupboard in somebody's apartment: fragments of conversation, the clang of pots and pans, passing traffic noise and various other acoustic ejectamenta of everyday life appear and disappear. Once more, the sounds are recognisably interior (crying children, flushing toilets..) and exterior (passing motorcycles, dogs..) in origin, but their coexistence as musical elements in a work of sound art has blurred the difference. Similarly, the seemingly untreated field recording raises the eternal question, is this life or is it art? That's for you to decide (I'd argue it's both). In its way, Tricoli's work is as aesthetically challenging as Martusciello's, the difference being you probably won't be evicted or have to replace your speakers if you play it loud. Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic, January 2004

L'esordio di Valerio Tricoli per la neonata Bowindo è già più di una semplice promessa! "Did They? Did I?" sono solo 19 minuti di suoni impalpabili e misteriosi, difficili da definire e collocare, termini come neo-concreto o elettroacustica diventano stretti e di comodo per raccontare quella che a mio avviso è semplicemente meraviglia e stupore dell'ascolto. Rifrazioni, giochi di luci ed ombre come nei paesaggi zen, piccoli suoni trovati, inventati o reinventati, che importa in fondo? Serve davvero conoscere le fonti di un suono che sembra provenire da zone intime e nascoste dell'anima? Certo par di riconoscere voci ed echi distanti, il tocco e rintocco di una campana tibetana, abrasioni di oggetti che, con un semplice microfono a contatto, diventano sculture sonore. Par di vedere piccole increspature e trasparenze. E' la sensibilità per il suono ad essere straordinaria in Tricoli, la stessa magica sensibilità dei paesaggi incantati di Lionel Marchetti e del Günter più assorto. Una lunga, generosa ghost track chiude il disco, ma credetemi anche solo 19 minuti a volte valgono quanto l'infinità. (8) Gino Dal Soler, BlowUp September 2003

Soft noises, clatters, movement but with noise eruptions like sprung switches. Little dits, chiming sounds and a rolling ball, electrohumm and rumble, more chimes and oral noises. Then there is metal tapping and electrosplatter, hollow echoed tapping and more scrapey noises. A baby cries and there are distant voices, the chimes and then tubular bells (or xylophone) long decay. Playing, and then transformed to a drone with more notes over. A soft patter crackle. Clicks, low drones, xylophone, tuning forks, scrabble and tone pulse drone, all building. Eases to soft spatter and pulse, dropping away further. Tones and rolling ringing (the chimes slowed?) A tone builds, cycles round, activity, lots of clattering, high tones, breathing, eases, softly to fade.
A complex and intriguing piece of electroacoustic collage, quietly mysterious.
It is described as running for 19'19", which it does: but wait, there's more. After a minute of silence, the cd continues for over another 20 minutes of open mike recording, with an empty ambience, child crying, distant talking, singing, shuffling, a cough, hollow banging on table. The intrigue continues – is the first part, the 'named' work, a reworking manipulation of the second part? but
there are missing things like the tubular bells, but the electronics these days; or is it a comment? Either way, it is not very engaging as little happens (except for being engaging in that sort of voyeuristic way); however the first 19'19" make up for it as the focus of this work. Jeremy Keens, Ampersand Etc.,October 2003

___Aestethics of the Machine (bowindo01)

Lest you be in any doubt about the label's radical credentials, Elio Martusciello's Aesthetics Of The Machine comes with the following warning: "These recordings are very, very loud. They are dangerous to the ears and for hi-fi systems. Listen with caution. Moderate the volume control." All right! The last album that came with a health warning was Zorn's Kristallnacht, and this one's even more fun. Working with ultrasounds (up to 20,000Hz) and infrasounds (down to 16Hz), all that we perceive, writes Martusciello, is "the result of what has been discarded, the driftage, the limits of technology and our auditory apparatus." Accordingly, the opening "Out of our mind" starts with a god almighty crack (the music, or the loudspeakers already registering disapproval?), and within less than a minute the sub-basses set the entire room shaking. I have a friend with a $30,000 hifi system and electrostatic speakers as tall as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but I'm somehow reluctant to ask him to try this album out, not wishing to be held legally responsible for any structural damage to his property that might result. Remember, as Stockhausen once said, "sounds can kill". Despite the rather scientific nature of the composer's accompanying notes, this is as much music for the body (literally) as it is for the mind; it might not be something one can be said to enjoy, but there is certainly a hell of a lot to feel. Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic, January 2004

The first album is a hard one to start with. There is a mini-essay in the cover, suggesting musical research, audio frequencies beyond hearing, an art of the medium and that 'even the resulting audio wave images in this work are very anomalous'. When we listen to it we hear a seemingly random array of sine and related noises – there are pure ones at various frequencies, clicks as they come and go, some harsh crackling distorted components, lovely deep thrumbles, piercing high ones, a couple of passes through the frequencies. The sounds are short or long, can come on their own or overlap, move through the sound field, vary in volume. There is also some variation across the tracks – some are more active, some harsher. Listening in different environments supposedly reveals varied aspects.
Which makes for intense and somewhat difficult listening. It can't be left as background as there are some loud eruptions, and grates at times, and its unpredictable nature keeps dragging you back in, with few soothing passages, but often engaging. I feel it needs more structure, but enjoyed it more on later listenings where I definitely kept it out of the front space. Jeremy Keens, Ampersand Etc.,October 2003

Il primo CD prodotto dalla label Bowindo, è forse il più radicale. Aestethics of the Machine, spiega Elio Martusciello, "è un esperimento che potrebbe essere definito come il punto d'ascolto della macchina". Il campo di frequenza audio di questo lavoro si spinge oltre le possibilità percettive dell'ascoltatore, volutamente. Si lavora con frequenze ultrasoniche (sopra i 20.000 Hertz) e infrasoniche (sotto i 16 Hz). I suoni prodotti nel CD sono generati al massimo volume consentito dal sistema digitale (OdB). Un gioco audace sulla definizione classica di "fortissimo" che qui perde ogni suo reale punto di riferimento (e senso). Da questa provocazione nasce un lavoro di paradossale bellezza: in uno spazio compositivo totalmente saturo ("totalmente sonoro, anche se oltre le nostre possibilità d'ascolto") si generano vuoti, nicchie, strappi in cui pare che tutto imploda nel silenzio. Falso, perché in queste volute depressioni sonore, scaturite dalle interferenze, dalle collisioni e dagli urti delle iperfrequenze, nasce una sorta di suono nuovo. Inconstintente e fragile. Violento e tagliente.
Cinque tracce che, nelle parole di Martusciello, cercano di rispondere a una concreta logica radicale e a una sorta di purismo elettronico: "in questo lavoro quanto si ascolta è il punto d'incontro violento (urto, collisione) tra l'uomo e la macchina che guida l'ascoltatore in una zona d'ascolto, spettrale e disturbante, che in definitiva non è solo all'interno della mente e del pensiero, ma anche un prodotto" . Il suono conturba, confonde e disturba con una radicalità difficilmente toccata prima di questa esperienza. Francesca Bellino, Allaboutjazz