Intro to this new blog

ADN                                                                                

AUF DEM NIL
A DULL NOTE

ALMA DE NIETO

ARTISTI DEL NOVECENTO

APPAREMMENT DES NOTES

AGNOSTIC DUMPLINGS NURSERY

RECOMMENDED RECORDS ITALY 

RER ITALIA

This is the blog of ADN label dedicated to the releases and the artists that made our wandering through music world an unexpected sequence of surprises and gave us the possibility to discover the humanity lying beneath the music. Many of the musicians that we met during these 40 years are now our close friends and collaborators. We always tried to follow the tortuous line of our taste, moving from noise to classical but always trying to avoid mainstream. Industrial , post industrial, krautrock, ethnic jazz, toy music, rock in opposition, jazz hardcore, noise, improvisation, experimental music, contemporary, free-rock, zeuhl, electronics .......and many other sub-genres. And after 40 years we are still listening to new forms of sound trying to satisfy our curiosity.

Scosse Elettriche - Geografia Invisibile CD Alma de Nieto catalog number DNN 044 C

 

“Geografia Invisibile” (Invisible Geography) is the second CD of Scosse Elettriche for ADN label . Riccardo Sinigaglia (piano, flute and electronics) and Davide Zolli (percussions) keep on doing the music they shared with Ariel Kalma in the LP “Three blokes in Ameno” (ADN DN9 010) and with tabla player Federico Sanesi in a recent tour of Northern Italy. The CD consists of two long suites called “Il cammino delle complicazioni” (the path of complications) 30 minutes long and “ Le costellazioni sconfitte” (defeated constellations) nearly 20 minutes. Riccardo creates sinuous atmospheres through piano, electric piano, flutes and vintage electronics supported by the percussive connection of Davide. No time for inattention if you keep your ears concentrated during the 50 minutes of this two tracks you will find a lot of interesting solutions to arrive satisfied at the end of this music adventure. Last track called “ Panorami Inesistenti” (not existing landscapes) is a jazzy sometimes bluesy contraposition between piano and drums that give you an idea of the capacity of these two musicians to improvise and compose interesting frames of music without expiration date.

Capricorni Pneumatici - Variants CD Alma de Nieto catalog number DNN 043 C

 

“Variants” is a new chapter of Capricorni Pneumatici an esoteric post industrial project that started in Italy during the nineties. First of all you will be caught by the nice cover recalling Flemish painter Hyeronimus Bosh. You may see it as an introduction to the dark disquieting spaces crossed by CP during the 7 tracks of this work. The sound generated by live electronics, percussions and treated guitars subtly flows from one track to the other trying to overcome the opacity of the world of shadows with intense and incisive layers that bring the listener to concentrate his attention on this minimalist experience leaving out the external world. This opus was created in hot summer of a hot city like Milano but has the winter climate of Northern Europe in it.

Palo Alto - The Persistence of Memory CD Alma de Nieto catalog number DNN 042 C

 

Palo Alto is a French group formed in Paris, France in 1989 by Jacques Barbéri, Denis Frajerman, Philippe Masson and Philippe Perreaudin. In their early interviews the group insisted on their musical filiation with Tuxedomoon, and on drawing their inspiration from Made to Measure, a Crammed Discs label. They would later make explicit their interest in bands such as Art Zoyd, The Legendary Pink Dots, Coil, The Residents, Can or Cabaret Voltaire. Science fiction in all its forms is a leitmotiv in the group’s work. In 1990 Palo Alto released their cassette tape, Le clos, on the Italian label Old Europa Café. At the time their music was definitely written rather than improvised, consisting mainly of instrumentals with a stress on melody. Two years later, Extrême Ponction was released as a cassette on the T.T.I.C.C. Contingent label in France. This double CD collects those two tapes with the addition of Excroissance, another cassette release from 1993, this time as a cassette single. The whole material has been remastered by Norscq in 2024. Attention for physical copies: the labels for CDs 1 and 2 have been swapped by mistake.

Open to the sea - watering paper flowers and snakes CD Alma de Nieto catalog number DNN 041C

 

Open to the Sea was born around the musical experiences of Enrico Coniglio, here playing piano and synths, and of the music wizard Matteo Uggeri who adds his world of samples, noises, field recordings and recorded instruments played by friends. The first CD is a re-edition of the double mini-cd “Watering a Paper Flower” where an echoed piano goes through delicate and enchanted sound tapestries, remembering a river slowly flowing to the sea. The second CD, with the participation of a third musician Saverio Rosi (who is now a stable member of the group), also on piano and synths is airier, nearly ethereal. We have here a collection of pieces released in different formats, some in their original shape and some reworked or remixed. So, you have the opportunity to listen to an unified sound effort, composed by many bites developed since 2017.

Circle - una volta era Circle CD Alma de Nieto catalog number DNN 040C

 

Circle was a short lived group formed in the mid-seventies by Ruggero Tajè and Riccardo Sinigaglia, both pupils of Angelo Paccagnini and later composers and teachers of electronic music at Milan Conservatory. Paccagnini was one of the great post-Webern composers, along with Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna and Giacomo Manzoni. Ruggero and Riccardo joined forces with their friend Roberto “Birillo” Gotta, who played double bass in Gaetano Liguori’s group and other jazz groups coming from the Milanese area. “Birillo” Gotta was a multi-instrumentalist, collector of strange and self-built instruments; he was also a very well-known artist for his works in recycled art. He died too early, at the age of 69 in 2022. This CD contains two extended pieces of free improvisation with elements of avant-rock and jazz and is entirely dedicated to “Birillo”.

Thomas Barriere - Alkebulan LP catalog number Artisti del 900 AD9 017

 

Thomas Barrière developed this album during the last ten years. Much has happened during the decade between "Primaire", his first solo album released in 2014 on Thödol and "Alkebulan". During this period, he travelled across the world several times with Trottola Circus, he formed the band Algecow with his cohort Bastien Pelenc, he composed a bunch of film soundtracks, and he became a father. And the world changed as well of course!! Thomas goes back to all forms of music that impressed him throughout his life. Born as a rock musician, he starts from Slash to go to John Lee Hooker, passing through Jimi Hendrix, then tracking down to Rhythm’n’Blues, Soul music and — thanks to John Coltrane — to the Gospel (a music already present in his sound installation Du Vent). And from there, if someone wants to go further, he has to leave America. Following the path of American jazzmen during the '60s and the '70s (the ending piece is entitled Nommo, referring to Dogons, not unlike the late Milford Graves' album with Don Pullen). Thomas Barrière tries to search the musical roots of the last century, tracking back to the source like a spawning salmon, leaping beyond his own culture to find the originating foundation of all popular music of the 20th century. Alkebulan is the pursuit of a musical "Urszene". And this matrix is in Africa, more specifically in Western Africa, considering its forced relationships with Western Europe, U.S., Caribbean and Brazil, due to triangular trades.

Magic Ohm - Sukajan LP catalog number Artisti del 900 AD9 016

 

This work has been created by Jerome Genin alias Magic Aum Gigi alias Diza Star, who played also in other groups affiliated to the Psychedelic rock of Acid Mothers Temple. The music goes back to the golden Krautrock years and is dedicated to the first Popol Vuh and Faust. The record thus shows two complementary sides, conceptually and musically different. The first side, called Attraction side, is fully electronic, thematically “attractive”, with a subversive magnetization. The first track includes an unpredictable variation on the Faust song ‘J’ai mal aux dents’. The second track of this side can be seen as a kind of “bridge” between the two other tracks; somewhere in the same way as in his legendary album “Inventions for electric guitar” Manuel Göttsching placed in the middle the track ‘Quasarsphere’ (which also sounds totally different than the two others). This short track was not conceived with Göttsching in mind but with Richard H. Kirk of Cabaret Voltaire. The second side, called Bell side, is undoubtedly the result of a strange mechanical and symbiotic alchemy with a long improvisation of 20 minutes of "celestial" nature coming from a Popol Vuh sample, which is also a tribute to Florian Fricke. In the end, a contemplative, dualistic album, originated from the emanations of Krautrock and other groups of experimental music in the same vein and actually “cosmic underground”.

Laurent Pernice - Antigone CD Alma de Nieto catalog number DNN 039C

 

Laurent Pernice, is an atypical musician, who comes from the great cold of industrial music. He seems equally at with electronic music, stage music, film music or even world music. The music on Sophocles’ Antigone (Theatre play by Anima Motrix) , which released on CD on the Italian label ADN (which had already released the music for Corps Utopique, in 2022) is his twentieth album. And that's not  counting the many albums he has contributed to, such as those by Palo Alto, an equally atypical group with close ties to science fiction literature. After an extreme exploration of wind  instruments from all over the world (hulusi, khen, rhadong, cromorne or moceño) for Le Corps Utopique, Laurent Pernice is now tackling strings. And especially the viola of Violaine Sutan, a teacher at the Marseille Conservatory of Music, who was willing to play along with the composer's penchant for experimentation. The sound of her instrument, while sometimes very clear and simple, interpreting melodies of a elegant beauty akin to that of classical music, is often turned on its head, slowed down, overdriven, to create textures conducive to the atmosphere of this or that part of the play. It is in these experiments that the music of Antigone breaks away from purely illustrative music to become a personal album in its own right by Laurent Pernice. Instrumentally, he takes an active part in the performance, playing bass, double bass, zither and harp himself... At times reminiscent of the atmospheres created by John Lurie for Jim Jarmusch's film Stranger Than Paradise, the tracks on the CD follow one another to build a kind of abstract narrative, as if to recreate the continuity of Sophocles' play without the text. They take you on a journey of an absolute tragedy, while revealing the infinite complexity of the human being.

ADN 40th Anniversary - 40 Years 40 Tracks Box 3 CD catalog number AgDuNu 002

In 2023 we wished to properly celebrate the 40th anniversary of ADN’s birth. So, we have contacted groups and musicians that stimulated our curiosity through these 40 years. Some of them are good friends of us, some were already part of our music trajectories; others, never contacted in the past, are near to be seen as our myths. Anyhow to cover our multiple interests we should have brought to your attentionmany more tracks, but we think this is a good synthesis of what we like. This compilation is a compendium of our "Out of Standard" series and the continuity of "Ode to Marco Veronesi" that was more intimate. In a hand-numbered box issued in 250 copies, together with an 88 pages booklet to understand our traversal itinerary in the magic world of music, you find more than three and a half hours of previously unreleased music that trespass the genres and standard conventions, by:

Af Ursin, Ambienti Coassiali, Simon Balestrazzi, P. Bastien + M. Côté, J.J. Birgé + G. Roulleau, Lol Coxhill, D.D.A.A., Embryo, Faust, D. Grimaud + V. Vilhet, Alfred 23 Harth, Christoph Heemann, Inclusion Principle, E. Ka-Spel + J. Lorichon + Q. Rollet, Christina Kubisch, La 1919, La STPO, Look De Bouk, Roberto Musci, Nisus Anal Furgler, Nocturnal Emissions + Barnacles, Nurse With Wound, Richard Pinhas, Reportaz, Scosse Elettriche, Smegma, Sorry For Laughing, Tagubu, Tasaday, Telectu, Asmus Tietchens, Toupidek Limonade, Ur Kaos, Ut Gret, Uz Jsme Doma, Giovanni Venosta, The Watts, Thierry Zaboitzeff, ZGA, :Zoviet*France:

Ambienti Coassiali & Riccardo Sinigalia - Guitambients catalog number Artisti del 900 AD9 015

This is the 3rd record of Ambienti Coassiali on ADN, this time officially shared with Riccardo Sinigaglia. Riccardo was already active on all tracks of "Spare Rooms" but here he is mentioned in the main titles. Side A consists of two long tracks and starts with "Guitambient 1" where a subtle treated guitar slowly crawls accompanied by small percussions, flutes and noises. Ten minutes wrapped in a calm climate evocating an ethnic eastern feeling. "Guitambient 2" proposes an intense interchange between treated guitars and electronic devices. It's still an accurate work on small persistent sonorities developed in nine minutes of a dreamy disturbance. "Guitambient 3" covers the entire side B and you better listen to it in the dark. So you can concentrate on the great variety of sounds slowly evolving to a final "crescendo". This track is the compendium of all the inspirations performed by the two musicians on this record.

Silvio Linardi/Riccardo Sinigaglia/Ruggero Tajè/Matteo Uggeri - Ottomani catalog number AD9 014

 

Ottomani is a project conceived by ADN and four of their friend musicians. Riccardo Sinigaglia, who had his debut album "Riflessi" on ADN. Ruggero Tajè, who made his first solo CD "Antologica 1976-1999) on ADN. Silvio Linardi & Matteo Uggeri who also had many releases on ADN. The concept was that all the four musicians had to create a basic track, that had to be enriched in three different passages by the other three musicians. After that the procedded track was returned to creator who was in charge of the final mix. The project started before Covid and will be ready before the end of 2023. The final result consists of four "electronic" tracks with a great variety of instruments guitar, piano, sax, viola, violin, flute and percussions. Every musician has left his characteristic marks but the work has a global uniformity. The music flows gently throughout the record alternating an ethnic middle-eastern feeling, oblique guitars, percussive themes, jazzy lightnings, original samples. 4 brilliant musicians, of different generations, bringing together a great variety of sounds and atmospheres.

Tungu - Predictability Failure CD

 

Sergey Senchuk aka Tungu was born in Chernihiv, Ukraine in 1999. He started playing in the spontaneous-intuitive band Kollektiv, and in the  hard core bands Remorse and Keepleer 18. He begun to record using the nickname Tungu with his first release "Opus Hereticus"in 2013. His idea was to make of Tungu a project that would contain field recordings, cut ups, samples and live instruments. Four albums were recorded since then : "Dense arrays" 2014, "Ilf and Petrov with us" 2016, "Burst of exsessive bliss" 2020, "In the vast expansion" 2021. "Predictability failure", his fifth one, was recorded and mixed with artists from all over the world. 16 "duets" with known and lesser known artists, creating interesting blends between experimentation and engaging atmospheres. 16 "electronic bagatelles" with a great variety of instruments (real ones and sampled ones) that reveal the brightness of Tungu's inspiration. Amy Denio, George Cartwright, Mia Zabelka, Ron Anderson, Mark Feldman, Erik Normand and other 10 musicians. Many of them are "improvivers" but their contributions are perfectly set in this interesting sound tapestry.

Riccardo Sinigaglia & Mario De Leo - Lettera Cosmica catalog number Artisti del 900 AD9 013

 

Since the 1970s Mario De Leo works as a musician and visual artist. His mechanical paintings are hybrid works that reveal the cosmic spiritualism hidden in the meanders of electronics. With Riccardo Sinigaglia (Futuro Antico, Correnti Magnetiche, Doubling Riders) De Leo consolidates an artistic and human partnership with Lettera Cosmica, a work unpublished to date, produced and recorded in 1981. In a wacky electronic vision of the succession of time, the tracks trace the four seasons in a fine process of analog loops, prepared tapes of strings and piano, time and pitch shifts, filtering with Synthi Ems and Teac 3340 4-track recorder. On this seemingly cold palette, De Leo deploys his own personal Mediterranean fingerpicking, with vocal timbres peculiar to the music of the South of Italy, but no longer circumscribed to the origins of his Pugliese regionalism, as much as to an expressive range seasoned also with irony and avant-garde.The sound writing harmonizes with the evocative cover, in which emerges a warmest human note of "technological peasant”.

Capricorni Pneumatici -Dissection catalog number DNN 037

 

Here the work of the last 4 years by Capricorni Pneumatici. A double CD  with 8 medium/long sound dissections recorded in Sweden, UK and Southern Italy. Dissection 1 is a frizzling track based on Tibetan bowl, maracas and music machine. Dissection 2 is a very long suite introducing low, calm waves of a forgotten sea that you should listen in a dark room. Dissection 3 is shorter with the addition of percussive echoed noises. Dissection 4 has a harsher sounds produced by synth, el guitar, tubular bells and soprano saxophone.Dissection 5 is a subtle long track based on field recordings treated with skill by CP. Dissection 6 is the longest track of disc 2 an airy echoing track with a lot of movement and different instruments struggling in a crescendo that keeps a dense tension throughout the piece. Dissection 7 is like an electric saw cutting a misty morning. 

Bruno De Angelis - Fluidics 21 catalog number DNN 036

 

We knew Bruno De Angelis for his solo cassette "MS" released in the 80'ties by Megamagomusic (label conducted by Alberto Fiori Carones) and by Illusion Production (label of DDAA) as Bruno Due. He was before this a member of Influenza Prods. legendary "Home Wave" group. Fluidics 21 consists of 14 tracks of experimental electronic music with unusual rhythms, cracky dissonances, linear trajectories, intricate knots and obscure atmospheres. An interesting blend of contemporay electronic music and illuminated ambient music with some hints of his past Wave experiences.

Dominique Grimaud & Véronique Vilhet - Broken Saxophones catalog number Artisti del 900 AD9 009

 

Dominique Grimaud was a member of an historical French underground group called Camizole. This group of mainly self-taught musicians started in the seventies as a vocal ensemble progressively introducing a growing number of instruments that gave them the possibility to create an unique anarchic musical chaos. Their original sound could be juxtaposed with Faust , Lard Free or even Urban Sax . Well, you will find the original spirit of Camizole  in this work. The title “Broken Saxophones” gives you a correct clue of what you will find inside: "King Sax" declined in a big variety of moods, sometimes raw, sometimes filtered, sometimes groaning, sometimes subtle and harmonic but always obstinately broken. Very important is also the work of Veronique Vilhet with her percussions giving an unconventional rhythmical support to the evolution of all wind instruments. The two hosts are also quite important : Jacky Dupety (saxophones on one track) who was one of the original members of Camizole and David Fenech (guitar on one track and pre-master work on the LP) who played with nearly all the fathers of French underground of the seventies (Jacques Berrocal, Pascal Comelade, Ghedalia Tazartes, Pierre Bastien…). The past and the present of French out of standard music. This Lp is a proof of how you can produce a real new unconventional sound nowadays without following the alternative music mainstream.

Open to the Sea - Tales from an underground river catalog number DNN 035

 

"Tales from an Underground River" is a record that has transformed many times before it was ready to be released in Fall 2022.

2019 - Winter Enrico Coniglio gave birth to it, musically speaking, in 2019 when he recorded two long and multi-layered sets of improvisation with piano, guitar and synths. This material was, as is true with any other OttS record, sent to Matteo Uggeri. He added and removed sounds, arranged tracks with a few beats and a wide variety of instruments (violin, drums, trumpet, cello…) played by his long time collaborators.

2020 – Winter The tracks were then dismantled into shorter bits and re-assembled, while a concept started to take form from amongst the sounds. The floating and fluid but mysterious nature of the tracks conceived in 2020 the "underground river" idea, which afterwards became a true driving force for the further steps of the record

2021 – Spring The track titles were then created in 2021 by Matteo's daughter, Olivia (7 years old at the time), in a brainstorming session with her sister Nora (4 years old) and their mother, Gaia, in an attempt of creating a sort of 'full poem' made of the titles of the 12 songs, which coalesced into the “tales” told by the waters.

2022 – Summer The thirteenth one (the closing track) was created in 2022, a long time after the rest of the tracks, when Saverio Rosi, a Netherlands-based Italian musician, officially joined the OttS band, now making it a trio Such song includes the vocals of Roberta Casini, mother of Uggeri, singing a lullaby. Indeed, the whole record hides, in its field recordings, the voices of her nephews (the two above mentioned little girls). The artwork is a painting made in (circa) 1985 by - again - Roberta. Her name might not be well known, but she was an inbetweener animator of cartoons in the '70s and '80s, including "La Linea"("The Line") by Osvaldo Cavandoli and "Tofffsy" by Pierluigi de Mas.

2022 - Fall A few days before the publication of this record, Roberta - who bravely struggled her disease for twenty years, died leaving that kind of emptiness that no musical release can ever fulfil. Nevertheless, the band and the labels are proud to carry on her artistic legacy making “Tales from an Underground River” finally public. Yes, this description may sound weird, convoluted and depressive, but that's the story of this record, whose musical nature develops into a continuous stream of sound, from ambient to progressive, to post rock, embracing jazz and an overall new-wave.

Terzetto Garibaldi - La Muerte es Muy Natural catalog number DNN 034

 

Terzetto Garibaldi is the meating of three different strong personalities. Roberto Zanisi (Cosmofonia Rudimentale, Eloisa Manera ensemble, Radical Raptors) is a virtuoso musician playing all kind of instruments specialised in string instruments of eastern world. His roots are in ethnic music, jazz, r.i.o.Luciano Margorani (LA1919, Fracture, Artchipel Orchestra, Beauty is in the distance, OppaT) is a versatile musician going from r.i.o, improvisation to electronics.Carlo Actis Dato (Italian Instable Orchestra, D.O.M. Alia orchestra, Andrea Centazzo Mitteleuropa Orchestra, Vapyrov Project, Actis Band…………) is an experienced band leader and sax player mainly in jazz area with the capacity to join other experiences.All this musicians met in the nineties in order to mix their different experiences and realize a record. The result is surprisingly very alive also nowadays, a mix of jazz, r.i.o, ethnics and impro that brings around 120 minutes of never boring, intense music that give an idea of the reactivity of the musicians in the exploration of alternative musical canvas. The name of the group has the name of Garibaldi (Italian national hero) in it and all the titles are crossed by an overall sense of humour that reveals the subtle play of three friends coming together to deepen their mutual understanding. Last but not least the cover comes from a picture by Franco Matticchio (well known Italian illustrator and painter). If you like experimentation this CD will surely satisfy your curiosity.

Look de Bouk - ...avec des coussins bleus catalog number Artisti del 900 AD9 012

 

Look de Bouk is one of the most important post rock-in-opposition groups in France.Its members were involved in historic French groups like Hellebore, Art Zoyd, Neo Museum and Szetendre. They are also founders of AYAA (Dominique Diebold) and In-poly-sons (Denis Tagu) labels and took part in the organisation of the “Musique de Traverses” festival of Reims during the 80’s. This is the re-mastered edition of the cassette with the same title auto-released in 1988 in a limited edition of 164 pieces, and it contains the music of some live concerts of 1987 plus an unissued track withJean-Francois Pauvros (Catalogue). Their music is joyful, strong and original. A mix of oblique paths that cross and diverge in a continuous flow of intensity and variability. All the musicians play also a variety of unusual or toy instruments giving a variegated flavour to this musical meal. The titles coming from their official albums increase their potential through the live performance. A little gem for the archives.

Enten Hitti - Via Lattea catalog number Artisti del 900 AD9 011

 

First of all something about the cover, a fantastic psychedelic painting by Matteo Guarnaccia, who unfortunately passed away last may before the release of this LP. Matteo was one of the leading artists of the alternative scene in Milano producing a lot of surprising pictures and gaining a reputation all over the world. "Via Lattea" (Milky Way) is the title of this LP  but Mother Earth is the subject of the cover and the inspiration of the record. Enten Hitti is an Italian group starting in the 1990, and coming from rock experiences. Pierangelo Pandiscia & Gino Ape started to develop their curiosity on world's costumes and musics. The music of the group evolved through a lot of different set ups poetry, theatre, sleeping concerts, live concerts in extremely original places or unusual atmospheres. 30 years of experiences that brought them to release an intense and variegated music opus with a great variety of ethnic instruments and the participation of lot of Italian musicians like Jenny Sorrenti (Saint Just) Juri Camisasca (Battiato), Alio Die, Vincenzo Zitello and Claudio Milano).

Ariel Kalma + Davide Zolli + Riccardo Sinigaglia - Three Blockes in Ameno catalog number Artisti del 900 AD9 010

The trio Kalma Zolli Sinigaglia is coming out from the experiences of the duo “Scosse Elettriche” (Zolli-Sinigaglia) playing with other musicians like Trio Cavalazzi and Ariel Kalma. Riccardo Sinigaglia is a well-known Italian composer, electronic musician and improviser; he played keyboards and flute in groups like Futuro Antico, Correnti Magnetiche, Doubling Riders, and collaborated with many musicians in Italy and abroad. Davide Zolli has been the drummer of Italian new scene groups like Squadra Omega and The Mojomatics. Together they formed “Scosse Elettriche”, an open group playing long and tortuous pieces based on adventurous improvisations. They released a CD on ADN label and a long track on their compilation “Out of Standard!! Italia 9” (with Trio Cavalazzi). They are also releasing a cassette soon.

Ariel Kalma is one of the pioneers of French underground of the Seventies, he plays synthesizers and winds and most of its works has been recently reissued.

The first track “Three Blokes And Their Birds” is a long suite with a constant rhythm evolving in a gorgeous trip created by keyboards, sax and ambient noises remembering the early works of Ariel. “Tiramisù Cayenne” is much more classical and jazzier, with piano sax and drums. “Khyber Passage” is very atmospheric piece where the sax flies over a delicate electronic tapestry and percussions are subtle and very well integrated in the groove. Finally, “Incessant Bourdon” (only on the CD) with oscillations, electric piano, keyboards, noises and drums. An intense flight over the peaks of inspiration with increasing rhythms around 19 minutes of pure new psychedelic music, to be enjoyed by scrupulous listeners.

Three Blokes in Ameno (AD9 010) Ich würde mich wundern, wenn da nicht Coxhill, Lacy & Parker als Three Blokes (in Charlottenburg) (FMP, 1994) Pate standen für ARIEL KALMA –keys, sax, RICCARDO SINIGAGLIA – keys, synths, electric organ, piano & DAVIDE ZOLLI – drums, perc. Kalma war einst schon Spielgefährte von Adamo und Baden Powell, bevor er sich als New-Age-Elektroniker seinen Namen machte. Sinigaglia ist ADN pur, mit Futuro Antico, The Doubling Riders, Correnti Magnetiche. Und als Scosse Elettriche mit Zolli, der vor 20 Jahren noch Garagenpunk mit John Woo und L'Amico Di Martucci und später Folk-pop mit Vermilion Sands oder The Mojomatics gespielt hat und mit Slawenhaken-Schnau-zer und Shades ein Rockerimage pflegt. Zu dritt lassen sie ihrer Phantasie und gleich zu Beginn Kalmas vogeligem Faible freien Lauf, für einen angerockt, angejazzt trippigen Flow, als krautige Skater, psychedelische Surfer mit ihren Keyboards und zu pochendem Tamtam züngelndem Sax. Für 'Tiramisù Cayenne' mischen sie quirliges Piano und zuckrig

rieselnde Percussion oder paukige Beats mit bluesigem Sax, aber pfeffriger Zunge. 'Khyber Passage' ruft zu aller Indienfahrerei einen bitteren Geschmack in den Mund, mit kriegerischen Trommeln, jauligem Synthi, zuletzt flötendem Spott. 'Incessant Bourdon' unterlegt die gläsernen Keys und Zollis marschierendes Tamtam tatsächlich mit langgezogenen Orgeltönen und Dröhnwellen für ein klimpriges Grooven im nicht nachlassenden Streben nach – einst hieß es Shangri-La.

Rigobert Dittmann (Bad Alchemy)

Laurent Pernice et Dominique Beven - Le Corps Utopique released 2022 label Alma De Nieto catalog number DNN 033C

In 2018, actress and dancer Emma Gustafsson and director Laurent Hatat (Anima Motrix Company), decided to reproduce on stage  by dancing it, a radio lecture by french philosopher Michel Foucault . They commissioned to Laurent Pernice the creation of the soundtrack to support both  text and dance focused on  Michel Foucault's words. Emma Gustafsson is the sole performer on stage. The show, entitled "Le Corps utopique" (”The Utopian Body"), named after the famous conference, was premiered at the end of 2020 at Rlap, in Marseille. 

During the creative process of this music, it became evident that only wind instruments could effectively accompany philosopher's and dancer's breath. So Laurent Pernice contacted Dominique Beven, an experienced multi-instrumentalist (but above all a blower) who collected a large number of instruments from all over the world. This gave him the possibility to develop a very diversified palette of timbres, that allowed the composer to vary the sound colors according to the scenes. The two musicians play Irish flutes, a Laotian khen, an Armenian bass doudouk, a diatonic accordion, a hulisi flute from Yunnan, an Andean moceño, various ocarinas... However, even if these instruments come from very different cultures, the music produced is not at all part of a kind of a world-music-fusion. 

These are truly original pieces, very personal, closer to contemporary and improvised music than to ethnic music.The recordings began in autumn 2019 in Laurent Pernice's studio. Dominique Beven improvised a series of tunes, under the direction of the composer, during three  different sessions distributed over time. The sound recordings were then re-arranged, mixed and electronically manipulated  by Laurent Pernice to produce the final pieces to be submitted to Anima Motrix Company .The album " Le Corps utopique", which is Laurent Pernice's 18th album, was released by ADN Records, a label based in Milan (Italy) and run since 1983 by people who are passionate about new, industrial and or improvised music. Since the beginning, they have shown a strong interest in deviant French music, publishing Pascal Comelade, Pierre Bastien, and DDAA... All the sessions recorded by Laurent Pernice and Dominique Beven have been gathered on this album. Michel Foucault's text does not appear on the CD, it is a purely instrumental album.

              

Laurent Pernice

Since 1988, the date of the release of "Détails", his first album, Laurent Pernice has gradually built up his battlefield, which is not far from extending to the whole planet. A multi-instrumentalist (bass, double bass, keyboards, erhu, percussion), he has produced nearly twenty albums in France, Belgium, Germany, Russia, Slovenia and Sweden, not to mention collaborations and compilations (Brasil, Japan, Australia...). In parallel to his personal work, he regularly works with the Artonik company (with which he performs all over the world), the experimental group Palo Alto and the science fiction writer Alain Damasio.

Dominique Beven

Born in Brittany, he studied Celtic music from 1975. He then toured Europe with the bagadou of Lann-Bihoué and Lorient. From 1982 onwards, he moved towards a fusion of traditional and electric instruments. His arrival in Marseilles in 1992, where many communities live together, allowed this self-taught ñack-of-all-trades to make numerous encounters and to diversify his approach to music. Multi-instrumentalist, he plays wind instruments (flutes, oboe, khen, bagpipes...), strings (guitar, dan nguyet, mandolin...) and hand and stick percussion (drum, bodhran, bendir...)

LA STPO - Romanciel CD release 2022 label Alma De Nieto catalog number DNN 032

 

La STPO (La société des timides à la parade des oiseaux / the shy society at the bird parade) was founded in 1984. Of the five current members, three have been within the band since its beginning : Pascal Godjikian (vocals), JimB (guitar), Patrice Babin (drums, percussion). Christophe Gautheur (keyboards, sax, clarinet) joined five years later. Sébastien Desloges (bass, violin) has been in the group since 2011.

La Stpo has released 10 albums, a 7", 2 mini CDs and has participated in numerous compilations during its existence. Its recordings have been released on labels in many countries: Italy, Germany, Mexico, France, Belgium, USA...

Romanciel is the tenth album of the band. It contains 4 tracks, 2 of which are long. Roman is a collage of different "moments" of a book, as if you were flipping through it and opening it at random; each chapter has its own atmosphere. Even the cover page and the table of contents are evoked and translated sonically.

Dictionnaire is a vocal (with a very short instrumental passage), which La Stpo has specialised in since its first album (see Boum de la Tête and Asaphum).

La Diminuée, whose chorus contains the phrase "romanciel", is a three-part composition with returning choruses, but it's hard to hear a "normal" song.

Rien qu'un Ciel was the highlight of the band's last tour. It describes the feeling of an observer around whom a wall is being built and yet who only wants to see the sky.

en français: 

La STPO (La société des timides à la parade des oiseaux) a été fondée en 1984. Des cinq membres actuels, trois sont présents depuis les débuts de la formation : Pascal Godjikian (voix), JimB (guitare),Patrice Babin (batterie, percussions). Christophe Gautheur (claviers, sax, clarinette) est arrivé cinq ans après. Sébastien Desloges (basse, violon) est dans le groupe depuis 2011. La Stpo a réalisé 10 albums, un 7’’, 2 miniCD et a participé à de nombreuses compilations durant son existence. Ses disques sont sortis sur des labels de nombreux pays : Italie, Allemagne, Mexique, France, Belgique, USA...

Romanciel est le dixième album du groupe. Il contient 4 titres, dont 2 longs. Roman est une compo collage de différents ‘moments’ d’un livre, comme si on le feuilletait etl’ouvrait au hasard ; chaque chapitre a son ambiance particulière. Même la page de couverture et le sommaire sont évoqués et traduits soniquement. Dictionnaire est un vocal (avec un très court passage instrumental) dont La Stpo s’est fait une spécialité dès son premier album (à l’instar de Boum de la Tête et Asaphum). La Diminuée, dont le refrain contient l’expression « romanciel », est une composition en trois parties avec retour de refrains, mais difficile d’y entendre une chanson ‘normale’. Rien qu’un Ciel était la composition phare de la dernière tournée du groupe. Elle décrit le ressenti d’un observateur autour de qui un mur se construit et qui pourtant ne voudrait voir que le ciel.

Masche - Oxia Chaos CD released 2022 label Alma De Nieto catalog number DNN 031 C

Masche is an Italian collective that offers a genre of Experimental and Jazz music with references to Electronic music. Long-lasting tracks and complex plots are the main ingredients of their sound, full of ideas and creative insights. The new album “Oxia Chaos” was released on February 4, 2022 via ADN Records / Cruel Nature Records and contains 4 long-running tracks. The lineup of this new album consists of 4 elements creating complex and articulated sounds with long intricate instrumental sections. Each of the artists involved brings their own creative and executive contribution to the band sound, offering technical insights and high-level virtuosity. the album is complicated and at first listening it can be difficult, but after a more careful listening it reveals all its beauty and the technique of the artists involved comes out. We are in a territory that ranges from Free Jazz to Experimentation, passing through all genres of Prog and Improvisation. Even the electronic inserts give a modern touch to the sound, which is true is complicated and intricate but of fine workmanship. The vocals are also dynamic and adapt well to the proposed music, offering original experiments. A listening recommended for lovers of the more complex sounds of jazz and improvisation, with a good dose of experimental and avant-garde music. The proposed sound is original and fresh and enhances the individual technique of the artists involved.

Jacopo Vigezzi (ProgRock Journal) 23/02/2022

Released in the year 1950 and written by respected US Sci-fi novelist Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles, is seen as a classic example of post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction. Oxia Chaos is this sonic collective's attempt to soundtrack said book, and it’s their second album

Hailing from Ivrea, Italy, Masche started in 2013 in Canavese, as an open collective focusing on merging rock, electronics and improvisation. Eventually, a steady line-up was settled, currently consisting of four musicians: Valerio Zucca Paul: electronics, Andrea Chiuni: bass and voice, Diego Rosso: drums, Alessandro Cartolari: baritone sax.

In The Martian Chronicles, we find strife and destruction due to the exploration and settlement of Mars, the home of indigenous Martians, by Americans leaving Earth that has been devastated by nuclear war. And this can be felt within the music! First of all, the sound “transliteration” of the book via Oxia Chaos seems as if it was recorded in a leftover cinematic set, combining that theatrical essence with a free jazz improv sensibility. The aesthetic of the production is organic and crystal clear, with a generally earthly sound. A mixture of instrument dynamics with electronic saturation, either in the continuance or contradiction manner; creating both topology and topography within the sound.

This is free form jazz, and it is definitely freaky. It’s a blend of loud and serene, capturing the book’s troubled outrush. Oxia Chaos progressively moves via the chains of reactions between the musicians. Sound phrases instantly create images, freely. Dramatic reciting of passages from the book, with an agonizing and emerging voice, accompanied by manic jazzy outbursts or low-profile soundscapes, where the sax is cataclysmic, the bass is crunchy, drums are pumping, and the electronics are shadowlike, sometimes scorching, like drops of water straight from hell. The whole soundscape is claustrophobic yet vast in conception, this is an album with various speeds, various sentiments, various sound ecologies, various moods, bright and dark contemporary and vintage.

With Oxia Chaos, Masche approach scoring The Martian Chronicle with the utmost respect to its atmosphere giving a great audio counterpart, which generates further stories. But also, Oxia Chaos stands as a heavy and heavily improvised jazz creation with rock elements, complete, with both volume and atmosphere - making it a fully psychedelic experience in every possible way. 

4/5

Karl Grümpe (Music Machine)

 

Rosso Polare - Cani Lenti released 2022 label Alma De Nieto catalog number DNN 030 C

 

"Cani Lenti" is a collection of duels, some may say. As the two minds of Cesare Lopopolo and Anna Vezzosi converge, a dichotomy of harmonious and contrasting sounds ebb, swirl and clatter in and amongst themselves. Using techniques from call and response improvisation, tape manipulation, experimental music and free-form folk, their approach to music making feels both atypical and familiar, organised and free-flowing, rooted and landless. Like the films of fellow Italian film-maker Alice Rohrwacher, Rosso Polare's music feels grounded in the earth, but sprouts and spreads in strange and often anachronistic ways.

The duo describe this album as it’s a struggle – a skirmish – that strives to resemble filmic sonorisations and forgotten sounds. Together they lead us on a journey into the depths of Chthonian Music.

(Fielding Hope - Cafe Oto)

Reissued with additional, previously unreleased tracks, "Cani Lenti" expands on the landscape depicted so far, with the idea of a sonic imagery which feel interstitial between organised “musical” sound and a more unorthodox, earthy and chtonian root linked by field recordings and a human cacophony close to natural bio-phony.

Written and performed by Cesare Lopopolo & Anna Vezzosi

Recorded between Milano and Brescia in 2020-2021

Mixed and produced by Cesare Lopopolo

Mastered by Alexander Pustynsky

Album art by Anna Vezzosi

Originally released by Takuroku

Rosso Polare are Cesare Lopopolo and Anna Vezzosi, experimental duo from Milan, Italy. One from the city, the other from the countryside; they combined ideas and constructed a peculiar musical language based on a mixture of field recording, call and response improvisation and audio manipulation.

Having their backgrounds in visual arts and sharing mutual interest in musical expression, they’ve been exchanging their sounds, exuding and absorbing from each other.

They released in 2020 their debut "Lettere Animali" via the Moscow-based label and collective Klammklang, followed by "Cani Lenti", available via Cafe Oto’s in house label Takuroku and reissued by ADN records.

Other collaborations include improvisational group SMIRNE and co-curation at Ebria Records.

OppaT - A New World/Dark Years CD released 2022 catalog number DNN 029 C

 

A New World and Dark Years are two different projects by OppaT alias Luciano Margorani (guitarist of LA1919, Beauty is in the Distance, Fracture and Artchipel Orchestra). This is the second opus of OppaT on ADN label .

A New World is a conceptual project that tries to explore all the lacks of our agonizing world. This is done through a series of titles remembering all what our society didn't develop with intensity through the years and centuries. Equity, Tolerance, Truth, Solidarity, Justice, Hope and Universalim. Virtues that could bring to a better New World. The music through all titles is generated by a manipulated "stretched " acoustic guitar. It's an important electronic flow that wraps your heads during around 38 minutes. The sound is very "orchestral" and gives the possibility to move around different climates.

Dark Years has the same conceptual basis but here the music is developed from sampled sounds, an electronic contemporary symphony generated by a more pessimistic mood.

A long CD that invites you to explore another side of this eclectic musician.

"I composed all the tracks of “A New World” and “Dark Years” using a computer, the Audacity music software, an acoustic guitar and files of already existing music. All the tracks on ANW are played on my Taylor acoustic guitar and then manipulated using the Paulstretch effect and other digital devices; the same for DY, where instead of a musical instrument I used music taken from my cd collection, obviously the original music I chose is no longer recognizable even because on each piece I overdubbed different musics. May I call this process my own kind of “Plunderphonics”, a term coined in 1985 by Canadian saxophonist and sound designer John Oswald.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plunderphonics

 http://www.plunderphonics.com/xhtml/xplunder.html

Massimo Giuntoli - F.I.T. CD released in 2021 catalog number DNN 028 C

 

F.I.T. - Found In Translation

An invented language, deliberately without any semantic value, in order to create phonetic deceptions and assonance able to evocate real idioms coming from disparate latitudes of human geography. All this accompanied by a suspended and unpredictable musical language.
Massimo Giuntoli continues his path of exploration of the controversial relationship between text and music, coming through to F.I.T. (Found in Translation) to an improbable universal language that makes fun of borders on earth traced by the most evolved species of our planet and of the concept of "foreigner" that is deeply rooted in the contemporary man's society.

Living in an era of all at once, this CD could result, at first listening too esoteric for a distract listeners. I won't tell you  that its music is easy to decrypt as the title could suggest.

Who already knows Massimo Giuntoli, can imagine that we can't expect anything simple from him, without a minimal touch of conceptualization. F.I.T. is  a work moving out of the standards with a lot of  assonance to the most experimental prog world, were listener could think to hear some words or phrases joining meaning and significance. It's an illusion. Behind the elusive Molkayan language (and culture) Massimo breaks conventions  and creates short circuits for listeners who try to give a meaning to words that don't have any. So finally they become accomplices to the artist trying to create stories in order to interpret words and music. This brings them to break the barriers between the artist and his public. This work is a pure paradox and in the meantime the most accessible work of M.G., bypassing the idea of the voice bearing unidirectional messages. Instead Massimo Giuntoli's voice acts like an instrument that evokes all kinds of emotions in a record that will remain a mysterious and unattainable brain teaser. The voice, remembering the one of Robert Wyatt,  goes through all the record (sustained by a music texture similar to a schizophrenic Philip Glass born in Canterbury) giving us the opportunity to listen to every single variation.

An absolutely original record.

Antonio De Sarno (Open Magazine)