BTF Newsletter 23rd July 2010

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AMBIENT / ELECTRONICA / AVANTGARDE   NEW Although Alvin Curran is almost universally recognized as one of the leading figure of the late 20th Century musical avant-garde, he has never received the recognition he deserves in the form of a proper publication. This is in fact the first book ever to present a complete and coherent picture of this gigantic figure of experimental music. A radical experimentalism and a kind of innate volatility have, in fact, long kept the person and the work of Alvin Curran, one of the historic founders of the group Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV), at the margins of contemporary musical historiography. His vast and all-inclusive experience refuses to fit into the common schemas and cubbyholes, excluding him from the conceptual straitjackets of current Western musicology. Lavishly produced and conceived, the book is centered around extensive descriptions of the most important works and compositional techniques, providing a historical account of Curran's musical concerns and changing style: in permanent flux between two distinct cultural geographies (Italy and USA), sensitive to an infinity of pressures, encounters, transformations, and provocations, Curran’s artistic voyage is presented here through a comprehensive historical and critical study that avoids buzz-word definitions and gives great respect to his otherness – an otherness clearly and happily a part of the variegated musical universe of our time. Although Alvin Curran is almost universally recognized as one of the leading figure of the late 20th Century musical avant-garde, he has never received the recognition he deserves in the form of a proper publication. This is in fact the first book ever to present a complete and coherent picture of this gigantic figure of experimental music. A radical experimentalism and a kind of innate volatility have, in fact, long kept the person and the work of Alvin Curran, one of the historic founders of the group Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV), at the margins of contemporary musical historiography. His vast and all-inclusive experience refuses to fit into the common schemas and cubbyholes, excluding him from the conceptual straitjackets of current Western musicology. Lavishly produced and conceived, the book is centered around extensive descriptions of the most important works and compositional techniques, providing a historical account of Curran's musical concerns and changing style: in permanent flux between two distinct cultural geographies (Italy and USA), sensitive to an infinity of pressures, encounters, transformations, and provocations, Curran’s artistic voyage is presented here through a comprehensive historical and critical study that avoids buzz-word definitions and gives great respect to his otherness – an otherness clearly and happily a part of the variegated musical universe of our time. Gathered for the first time in a single monograph, the contributions of several of the foremost Italian and international scholars – enriched by an astounding “travel log” by Alvin Curran himself and by unpublished images from his private archive – confirm the role of this composer-performer-teacher-writer as a major contributor to the evolution of artistic languages in the late twentieth century and beyond.Gathered for the first time in a single monograph, the contributions of several of the foremost Italian and international scholars – enriched by an astounding “travel log” by Alvin Curran himself and by unpublished images from his private archive – confirm the role of this composer-performer-teacher-writer as a major contributor to the evolution of artistic languages in the late twentieth century and beyond. WRITTEN IN ITALIAN

AMBIENT / ELECTRONICA / AVANTGARDE   NEW Known to the very few, The Electric Harpsichord is possibly THE obscure masterpiece of the days of the early American minimalism. Recorded live in 1976 after many years of study under the guidance of Pandit Pran Nath and LaMonte Young, it has finally found the perfect home in the DieSchachtel ART catalogue: a lavishly produced and innovative silver/black cardboard book+CD edition, that gives the work the space and merit it deserves as a unique work of art, complete with two poems by LaMonte Young especially written for this edition, and an extensive essay by Henry Flynt. An improvisation performed on Just Intonation tuned keyboards put through time lag accumulators similar to those used by Terry Riley, Hennix has produced one of the most remarkable pieces of music to emerge from the La Monte Young school of minimalism. A Swedish born composer, who studied in the tradition of the Xenakis and Stockhausen in the 1960s, Hennix met La Monte Young and Hindustani raga master Pandit Pran Nath at the Nuits du Fondation Maeght festival in 1970, and pursued studies with both men during the 1970s. While the use of the time lag in Riley's works such as "A Rainbow in Curved Air" results in an experience of blissful, focused, samadhi-like calm, Hennix's drone work has more in common with the chaotic fluxes of psychedelic experience or the mandalas of Tibetan Buddhism. This is a moving eternity, pulsating, shifting-something like a raga perhaps, insofar as a raga is a specific deity invoked into sound, shifting, fluttering inside the matrix of the drone. "In every media, the work of Christer Hennix shows extraordinary mastery of the interrelationship between Eastern and Western thought.” ___ _La Monte Young “Hennix’s The Electric Harpsichord is a gigantic piece, ma killer, a work which exists outside of style or genre. It is unbelievable. It creates blocks of sound that move min and out of each other to create the effects. It is a pure perfect piece of music that resonates and resounds and creates a universe that it is impossible by other means. In our primitive and unenlightened culture it becomes a work of transcendent power.” __Glenn Branca

JAZZ-ROCK   NEW Very good solo record by Fabio Rigamonti, an excellent Italian bass player that in the past worked among others with members of Edgar Allan Poe, Pholas Dactylus, De De Lind, and Area. From 2010 he is a member of the reunited Alphataurus. According to Fabio "The title "ROOMS" has two meanings. One is due to the fact that we have recorded this album playing in five separate rooms, including the studio corridor !...where the musician were not able to see each other, except those cases where two musicians were in the same room. It was a sort of challenge, if you think that most of the music you can listen here is improvised music. The other meaning is about the "genre" of music we have played. People are used to divide and call music in different genres, such as jazz, rock, funk, classical etc...but I believe that there are only two "genres" : the bad one and the good one!and just try not to play the bad one!For this reason I have called a bunch of good friends, from Italy, Hungary and USA...and simply asked them to come to the studio just bringing their own instruments and their...music. Some of them came with classical into their "music luggage", some with jazz, with rock, fusion, folk, ambient,...but nobody was aware of what we will have actually played together !...nobody had scores of my music before getting the studio, some of them met for the first time in the studio, and became friends there." A nice and intriguing effort, mainly instrumental.

JAZZ-ROCK   NEW My grandmother's space suit is the third album by Fonderia. Released four years after Re>>enter, this work marks a major change in the band's professional perspective, a musical challenge, and it is characterized by many new features, as the band decided to produce the record in UK to get a different and richer sound. Recorded in the Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios this new work reflects the different styles of music that environment suggests. Jazz rock, post rock, melodic and athomspheric… More Canterbury than Miles Davis: you can find some King Crimson, Caravan or Soft machine also. A great 3rd album! Line-up: Emanuele Bultrini - guitars Federico Nespola - drums Luca Pietropaoli - trumpet Stefano Vicarelli - keyboards Claudio Mosconi - bass Barbara Eramo - vocals on #3 Emmanuel Louis - vocals and guitars on #8 Cristiano De Fabritiis - vibes on #1 Per questa importante occasione il gruppo si è avvalso della preziosa collaborazione del produttore Marco Migliari che li ha portati in Inghilterra, nei celebri Real World Studios di Peter Gabriel. ll brano-manifesto che sintetizza meglio questa collaborazione è forse quel "Loaded Gun," uscito anche come singolo, che vede alla voce l'ospite Barbara Eramo. Il brano è spazioso e riflessivo, circolare e rarefatto, più interessato a costruire un mood che non a montare un groove. Rispetto al passato il gruppo sembra aver spostato il centro dell'attenzione da Miles Davis verso Canterbury e verso le terre nordiche, mollando qualcosa sul versante funky per cercare più la dimensione ambient. Se vogliamo fare qualche nome possiamo pensare alle cose più melodiche dei King Crimson, dei Caravan e dei Soft Machine, senza scordare la musica scandinava di Molvaer e altri. Sono scelte che spostano un po' il sound di Fonderia, sono scelte che tolgono alcune cose in termini di cattiveria e di capacità di coinvolgimento a livello di pancia, per guadagnarne altre in termini di pulizia, di sottile fascinazione e di raffinatezza.

PROGRESSIVE   NEW LIIR BU FER was born by Nicola De Bortoli and Andrea Tumicelli ( already in Vortex Meraviglia e Velcro) later joined by Marco Tuppo (Nema Niko, Raven Sad and Sciarada). The music is a mixture between electronic with an acoustic soul and reflective ambient all bound together with post rock and kraut rock. LIIR BU FER nasce dall'incontro di Nicola De Bortoli e Andrea Tumicelli (già  Vortex Meraviglia e Velcro) nel 2008. La prima fase del progetto culmina con la sonorizzazione di un'esposizione di Luca Armellini. L'attività  del gruppo riprende nella seconda metà  del 2009, grazie anche al preziosissimo innesto di Marco Tuppo (già  Nema Niko,Raven Sad e Sciarada). In formazione trio l'ambito musicale che si viene a formare è un crocevia di elettronica dal cuore acustico (tra oggetti percossi in loop minimal e contrappunti cameristici) e ambient contemplativo (synth analogici e vecchi organetti), il tutto contaminato e imbastardito da tratteggi post e kraut. "3 Juno" è il debutto discografico che sa cogliere e fotografare adeguatamente la dimensione sperimentale e creativa dei Liir Bu Fer, arricchita da pregevoli ospiti, come le presenze vocali di Claudio Milano (Nichelodeon) e Raffaello Regoli (ideatore ed organizzatore dell'Omaggio a Demetrio Stratos). Grande attenzione viene data all'aspetto visual, in una sorta di colonna sonora reale e irreale di immagini ed emozioni.

AMBIENT / ELECTRONICA / AVANTGARDE   NEW Musica Improvvisa is a project of electronic improvisation, an open dialogue among musical experiences, different narrations and aesthetics made to disorientate and orientate again in new soundscapes. Die Schatchel label will present a box (available for sale early in june), ten albums, ten groups in a free and temporary line-up that will play non-stop on Friday and on Saturday. All of a sudden a sound emerges. It hurts like a scream, it make a hole in the skin of the air, like a bullet, or it can be a whisper and a caress. Then silence. All of a sudden the silence becomes taut, the void becomes wait. Its ends lean out of the edge and detach, becoming alienating answers that open to unexpected speeches. In a place where the boundaries are porous and always changing, particles of electrical life that appear and hide and draw the map of their territory just as they pass on it. All'improvviso emerge un suono. Ferisce come un grido, buca come uno sparo la pelle dell'aria, oppure sussurra e accarezza. Poi tace. All'improvviso il silenzio si tende, il vuoto si fa attesa. Le sue estremità si sporgono dal bordo e si staccano, trasformandosi in risposte stranianti che aprono discorsi inattesi. In un luogo dai confini permeabili, sempre mutevoli, particelle di vita elettrica appaiono o si nascondono, disegnando la mappa del loro territorio solo mentre lo stanno percorrendo. Musica Improvvisa è un progetto di improvvisazione elettronica, un dialogo aperto tra esperienze musicali, narrazioni ed estetiche differenti, per disorientare e ri-orientare in nuovi paesaggi sonori. L'etichetta Die Schachtel presenta un box, dieci cd, dieci gruppi in formazione libera e temporanea che suonano ininterrottamente venerdì e sabato.

PROGRESSIVE   NEW ORCHESTRA PANICA is a new project from Luca Vicenzi (Guitar, Zita Ensemble) and Francesco Agostini (keyboards, programming). Psychedelia, Steve Reich minimalism and Miles Davis electric jazz are the main influences. Ispirato all'arte surrealista di Alejandre Jodorowsky nasce ORCHESTRA PANICA, nuovo progetto ideato da Luca Vicenzi (chitarre, anche Zita Ensemble) e Francesco Agostoni (tastiere, programmazione), tra ambientazioni allucinogene, ampie spazialità  visionarie, passando per il minimalismo di Steve Reich e il jazz elettrico più planante di Miles Davis. Coadiuvato e arricchito da una piccola orchestra di tromba (Michele Falotico), vibrafono-glockenspiel-timpani-marimba (Giuseppe Gagliardi), contrabbasso (Marco Ferrara), basso elettrico (Moreno Meroni), batteria (Luca Urbani), il respiro di "Journey to devotion" è soprattutto suggestione, psichedelia atemporale, intepretazione sonora del "movimento panico", nella sua concezione instabile ed effimera. ORCHESTRA PANICA is a new project from Luca Vicenzi (Guitar, Zita Ensemble) and Francesco Agostini (keyboards, programming). Psychedelia, Steve Reich minimalism and Miles Davis electric jazz are the main influences.

PROGRESSIVE   NEW Passover is a progressive rock band that blends the most symphonic style to traditional jewish/klezmer folk. The result is an incredible symph/folk sound, unique and extremely fascinating. The band members are Jews, from Trieste (Italy) and Boston (Massachussets): the latter is hometown to the female singer, whose voice is simply splendid. Passover's lyrics are mainly based on the Old Testament, since even if many stories have been written during the centuries, it is still the basic text that shows the way, for this band's conception. So the concept album Sacrifice is about the story of a father and a son that trust their Lord entirely: "So many people die in vain" is a symbolic sentence that reminds us that the Lord would have never let Abraham sacrifice his son. This album blends klezmer, rock and folk, giving the listener the impression of a musical journey through undefined and remote areas of the world. Passover use instruments and sounds that bring us back to the '70s, along with their composition style: they make us think of Pink Floyd, Genesis, the first King Crimson, in a brilliant crossover towards the best klezmer music. Passover will be touring Japan and USA in October and November 2010. I Passover sono una band progressive che vuole unire il più classico stile sinfonico progressive con la musica tradizionale klezmer ebraica. Ne esce un incredibile sound folk/sinfonico praticamente unico e veramente suggestivo. Questa band, di origine ebraica, arriva da Trieste e da Boston, dove risiede la cantante dotata di una voce bellissima. I Passover cercano sempre di coniugare la musica e il testo con l'Antico Testamento in quanto esso rimane sempre il testo di riferimento per chi cerca qualcosa di più spirituale, molte storie sono state scritte ma quelle all'interno di questi 5 libri rappresentano per loro la strada da seguire.... Il concept album Sacrifice scava nei meandri della storia umana e della storia di un padre e un figlio che hanno piena fiducia nel Signore, "C'è già tanta gente che muore inutilmente" una delle frasi simboliche per far sapere che mai e poi mai D-o avrebbe chiesto ad Abramo di sacrificare il proprio figlio. La musica mescola come sempre nei Passover klezmer, rock e folk ebraico che danno l'impressione a chi ascolta di sentire all'interno delle varie tracce musiche derivanti da varie arie geografiche spesso non definite come del resto dovrebbe essere la musica, una fonte di suoni eterei indefiniti. L’utilizzo di strumenti e suoni tipicamente anni 70, oltre al tipico modo di comporre, legato a quel periodo fanno avvicinare la musica dei Passover a Pink Floyd, Genesis, primi King Crimson unendola alla miglior tradizione popolare klezmer. I Passover saranno in tour in Giappone e Usa nell’ottobre e novembre 2010.