Valerio Tricoli (Palermo, Italy, 1977) is a composer and performer of electro-acoustic music, currently based in Munich. Aligned to the tradition of musique concrète, and possibly trying to renew it outside the academic flavor often found in contemporary takes on this compositional style, his electro-acoustic studio compositions explore themes of the internal - represented both by the psychological and the physical -- which together with the use of spoken text and literary references, makes them often deeply existential works, self-investigations of the psychological, emotional and irrational horror within. Since the mid '00 his main instruments for live presentations and sound manipulation is the Revox B77 reel-to-reel tape recorder, used as a completely analogue device for live sampling and real-time transformation/editing/mixing of pre-recorded (field or studio recordings) and made-on-the-spot sound sources, the latter usually being vocalizations (including speech and singing), acoustic and electronic instruments and everyday objects. On a formal level both his improvised live-sets and his compositions focus on the creation of a narrative which takes into account the multiple relations intervening between reality, virtuality and memory during the acoustic event: sounds are always hovering between the "here and now" and the shady domain of memory -- distant but at the same time present like in a deja-vu experience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CD
|
|
SHELTER 139CD
|
The Palermo born, Munich based composer, Valerio Tricoli, has forged a singular path within experimental sound practice, continuously rethinking the relationship between electroacoustic composition and narrative possibility. Say Goodbye to the Wind is his first album with Shelter Press. Across three intricate, deeply personal works of concrète music, the composer blurs the boundaries between the tangible and abstract, weaving complex allegories for the self. Most commonly created on a RevoxB77 reel-to-reel -- manipulating, live sampling, and real-time editing/mixing of field and studio recordings -- in Tricoli's hands, estranged moments of sonorous ephemera transmogrify and intertwine as metaphorical and allegorical sums, far greater than their parts. The title of Tricoli's sixth full-length is taken from a story by J.G. Ballard, set in the desolation of a holiday resort that rests among a landscape of endless rolling dunes that are populated by "sound sculptures" and monsters. Historically, one of the primary pursuits of musique concrete is the transformation of everyday sonority into abstractions of profound meaning and weight. While this process unquestionable played a heavy hand in the composition of Say Goodbye to the Wind, Tricoli's approach to the idiom sets the stage for something entirely unique. Not only are the practices of tape music applied to field recordings, but to the sounds of piano, synthesizers, objects, and the composer's voice, in addition to interventions by Ecka Mordecai (cello), Lucio Capece (soprano saxophone), and Ida Toninato (vocals). "Lo Spopolatore", draws its title from Samuel Beckett's short story Le Dépeupleur (The Lost Ones). Tricoli's work weaves together a multitude of sonorous fragments: field recordings, voice, and diverse instrumentation. "Mimosa Hostilis" -- the name of a Brazilian plant which contains DMT -- begins with same recording as its predecessor, made of his son's breathing, a few months after his birth, in the Sicilian sea wind. Here, Tricoli treats his sources with pointillistic precision, intermingling vocal and minimal instrumental gestures into a polyrhythmic patter that transforms commonplace sonority into aural echoes of wind, rain, the shadowy species within. The title of "De Vacuum Magdeburgicus" is taken from the name of the first paper published by Otto von Guericke, a 17th century, German scientist, inventor, and politician. While no less oriented around the abstract possibilities activated by field recordings, "De Vacuum Magdeburgicus" is the album's most explicitly musical work. Warbling instrumental sounds and vocal interventions, bent by the hand tape manipulation, push toward heightened states of drama and tension, pushing and pulling against a vast pallet of textures drawn from the natural word and beyond. Artwork by Mårten Lange. Mastered by Rashad Becker.
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
SECOND 066LP
|
Second Sleep present Valerio Tricoli's Vixit. Valerio Tricoli is an Italian electroacoustic composer based in Munich. Valerio is very good at creating a narrative structure where sounds take shape and become real characters of a story. The track "La Solidità della Nebbia" evokes the ghosts of Luigi Russolo, it's a composition based on 1/4-inch-tape treatments of samples of both Intonarumori and self-built acoustic instruments made to resemble the sonic qualities of Futurist's instruments. "Di Vaga Crepa, di Gelido Futuro", on the other side, is a long tracking shot in which electronic and concrete sounds are recounted by Revox tape recorder and digital processing techniques. Edition of 200.
|
|
|