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viewing 1 To 16 of 16 items
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DCLP 011CD
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Perpetual Possibility is an album that bears witness to the collaboration between Lino Capra Vaccina, living legend of Italian minimalism and the avant-noise duo Untitled Noise with an interesting album on the label Dark Companion. Perpetual Possibility is the faithful transcription of the concert held by the trio at the MA*GA Museum in Gallarate, Italy and is the first recorded live album by Lino Capra Vaccina. Untitled Noise weaves delicate electronic warps on which the gongs, vibraphone, piano and bells of Capra Vaccina, true semantic trademark of the founder of Aktuala. A mystical and nocturnal album recorded live at the Maga di Gallarate, mixed, and mastered by Alberto Callegari at the Elfo Studios in Tavernago. Recorded live on March 3, 2018 at MA*GA Museum, Gallarate, Italy; Mixed in January 2019 at Big Muff Studios, Piacenza by Max Marchini. Personnel: Lino Capra Vaccina - vibraphone, piano, glockenspiel, gongs, wind chimes, percussions, tablas, bowed instruments, cymbals; Untitled Noise comprising: Michele Lombardelli - analog devices, oscillators, mixer; Luca Scarabelli - microphones, springs, metals, marbles. CD version comes in an edition of 500..
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DCLP 011LP
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LP version. Bronze vinyl; edition of 500 (hand-numbered). Perpetual Possibility is an album that bears witness to the collaboration between Lino Capra Vaccina, living legend of Italian minimalism and the avant-noise duo Untitled Noise with an interesting album on the label Dark Companion. Perpetual Possibility is the faithful transcription of the concert held by the trio at the MA*GA Museum in Gallarate, Italy and is the first recorded live album by Lino Capra Vaccina. Untitled Noise weaves delicate electronic warps on which the gongs, vibraphone, piano and bells of Capra Vaccina, true semantic trademark of the founder of Aktuala. A mystical and nocturnal album recorded live at the Maga di Gallarate, mixed, and mastered by Alberto Callegari at the Elfo Studios in Tavernago. Recorded live on March 3, 2018 at MA*GA Museum, Gallarate, Italy; Mixed in January 2019 at Big Muff Studios, Piacenza by Max Marchini. Personnel: Lino Capra Vaccina - vibraphone, piano, glockenspiel, gongs, wind chimes, percussions, tablas, bowed instruments, cymbals; Untitled Noise comprising: Michele Lombardelli - analog devices, oscillators, mixer; Luca Scarabelli - microphones, springs, metals, marbles.
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DCLP 012CD
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Critically acclaimed as one of the best records ever, Robert Wyatt's 1974 Rock Bottom masterpiece has been re-arranged by Craig Fortnam for his amazing North Sea Radio Orchestra. Featuring long time Wyatt's collaborator and Henry Cow founder John Greaves on bass guitar and vocals and the amazing vocalist Annie Barbazza as lead singer: this is a heartfelt, fantastic tribute to Robert Wyatt's music. Cover notes by Robert Wyatt and Jonathan Coe.
"This concert is a beautiful event, for me. These musicians seem to me to have really grasped what my songs are about; but at the same time, created an entirely fresh way of putting the music together. I feel so honored and so grateful." --Robert Wyatt, March 2019
"One of the greatest albums of the 1970s, beautifully reimagined and re-written for orchestra. I have listened to Rock Bottom hundreds of times, and thought I was familiar with it: but this brilliant new version opens up new depths, fresh vistas, hidden truths. An amazing achievement." --Jonathan Coe, March 2019
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DCLP 012LP
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LP version. Audiophile, blue vinyl; Edition of 500, hand-numbered. Critically acclaimed as one of the best records ever, Robert Wyatt's 1974 Rock Bottom masterpiece has been re-arranged by Craig Fortnam for his amazing North Sea Radio Orchestra. Featuring long time Wyatt's collaborator and Henry Cow founder John Greaves on bass guitar and vocals and the amazing vocalist Annie Barbazza as lead singer: this is a heartfelt, fantastic tribute to Robert Wyatt's music. Cover notes by Robert Wyatt and Jonathan Coe.
"This concert is a beautiful event, for me. These musicians seem to me to have really grasped what my songs are about; but at the same time, created an entirely fresh way of putting the music together. I feel so honored and so grateful." --Robert Wyatt, March 2019
"One of the greatest albums of the 1970s, beautifully reimagined and re-written for orchestra. I have listened to Rock Bottom hundreds of times, and thought I was familiar with it: but this brilliant new version opens up new depths, fresh vistas, hidden truths. An amazing achievement." --Jonathan Coe, March 2019
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DCLP 010CD
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Ron Geesin on ExpoZoom: "In 1969, I was commissioned to make all the music and organized noises for nineteen looped films to be run in the British Pavilion at Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan. The overall concept was to have all the films running in fixed positions so that the individual visitors would 'mix' their audio and visual experience by the speed and direction of their movement through and around the environment. Since most of the ninety-second films focused on highly technical aspects of British industry, it was decided with the producer, James Archibald and Associates, that we should do the final sound mixes with the finished films in the dubbing studio from as many ingredients as I thought necessary for each film. So I made all those textures separately, but was never provided with the finished mixes. Recently, I pulled out the five 10.5" spools of tape from my archive and ran them. Firstly, after nearly fifty years, the physical tapes were in good condition being formulated from stable chemicals before the horrible 'sticky tape syndrome' of the 1980s. Secondly, having not revisited any of this material after 1973, I noticed that there were many prototypes of ideas made with much tape editing and analog synthesizers that only emerged from me in the pieces for KPM Electrosound and later in the 1970s, so there was a certain energetic outpouring of crude vitality from these earlier works. After all those years, I had little idea of how the original film tracks were mixed, so I transferred all those initial ingredients to my preferred digital setup and made new pieces, keeping each group of modules under its original title where known. In a few cases I added or strengthened a melodic line and, where pure electronic tones were made on tape with inevitable dropouts, remade the tones digitally. The pieces, influenced by the original pavilion layout, then suggested to me that they be grouped in four movements. One piece, 'Wool', is left out because it was lifted as 'Twist And Knit For Two Guitars' for my As He Stands (1973) album. Maybe if this lowly composer had been allowed to go to Japan, to join and probably embarrass the gray-suited British Government officials, he would have remembered more about the final structure of the films - and maybe just as well he wasn't, and therefore didn't." Recorded, composed, and mixed by Ron Geesin.
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DCLP 010LP
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LP version. Ron Geesin on ExpoZoom: "In 1969, I was commissioned to make all the music and organized noises for nineteen looped films to be run in the British Pavilion at Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan. The overall concept was to have all the films running in fixed positions so that the individual visitors would 'mix' their audio and visual experience by the speed and direction of their movement through and around the environment. Since most of the ninety-second films focused on highly technical aspects of British industry, it was decided with the producer, James Archibald and Associates, that we should do the final sound mixes with the finished films in the dubbing studio from as many ingredients as I thought necessary for each film. So I made all those textures separately, but was never provided with the finished mixes. Recently, I pulled out the five 10.5" spools of tape from my archive and ran them. Firstly, after nearly fifty years, the physical tapes were in good condition being formulated from stable chemicals before the horrible 'sticky tape syndrome' of the 1980s. Secondly, having not revisited any of this material after 1973, I noticed that there were many prototypes of ideas made with much tape editing and analog synthesizers that only emerged from me in the pieces for KPM Electrosound and later in the 1970s, so there was a certain energetic outpouring of crude vitality from these earlier works. After all those years, I had little idea of how the original film tracks were mixed, so I transferred all those initial ingredients to my preferred digital setup and made new pieces, keeping each group of modules under its original title where known. In a few cases I added or strengthened a melodic line and, where pure electronic tones were made on tape with inevitable dropouts, remade the tones digitally. The pieces, influenced by the original pavilion layout, then suggested to me that they be grouped in four movements. One piece, 'Wool', is left out because it was lifted as 'Twist And Knit For Two Guitars' for my As He Stands (1973) album. Maybe if this lowly composer had been allowed to go to Japan, to join and probably embarrass the gray-suited British Government officials, he would have remembered more about the final structure of the films - and maybe just as well he wasn't, and therefore didn't." Recorded, composed, and mixed by Ron Geesin.
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DCLP 009CD
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Dark Companion label head Max Marchini on Hamdelaneh Intimate Dialogues (January 2019): "Another true masterpiece from Dark Companion Records. I met Markus Stockhausen after inviting him and his wife to 'Musiche Nuove In Piacenza' festival in autumn 2018. Immediately I felt a strong empathy towards him. That doesn't happen very often. I knew his work and had always admired it, especially the spontaneous compositions he performs and the way his unique talent blossoms in these situations. We talked at lunch and I dared propose to him to record an album for our small Dark Companion label. The dream came true when Markus, after a few minutes in silence, phoned Alireza and suggested he be a special guest at our concert that very same evening. After some thought he kindly agreed. Alireza soon arrived in Piacenza and I had the opportunity to get to know one of the most charming and kind persons in the world. And an extraordinary musician -- a master of the old Persian santoor, an instrument of many voices that sings like an angelic choir under Alireza's hammers. When they performed the third and last movement of the concert, the audience was mesmerized, and so was I. Once more, the Magic Fairy was with us. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not. I saw someone in tears when Markus started to sing a sort of mystic, ancestral chorus with the audience. The music in this album is absolutely new but within it breathes a very ancient, sunken soul, a hidden root. Alireza and Markus were so kind as to give me this beautiful recording they made in Italy three years ago. I also have to thank Simon Stockhausen, Markus's brother, who mixed and mastered this album with a state-of-the-art quality. I am very proud to now have Markus and Alireza in our catalog and I hope this album may give you the same intimate, graceful, peaceful atmosphere these musicians have given me. The meaning of Hamdelaneh is 'with the same heart'."
Personnel: Markus Stockhausen - trumpet, flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet, voice; Alireza Mortazavi - santoor. CD version comes in a gold paper sleeve; Edition of 500 (hand-numbered).
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DCLP 009LP
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LP version. Gatefold sleeve; edition of 500 (hand-numbered). Dark Companion label head Max Marchini on Hamdelaneh Intimate Dialogues (January 2019): "Another true masterpiece from Dark Companion Records. I met Markus Stockhausen after inviting him and his wife to 'Musiche Nuove In Piacenza' festival in autumn 2018. Immediately I felt a strong empathy towards him. That doesn't happen very often. I knew his work and had always admired it, especially the spontaneous compositions he performs and the way his unique talent blossoms in these situations. We talked at lunch and I dared propose to him to record an album for our small Dark Companion label. The dream came true when Markus, after a few minutes in silence, phoned Alireza and suggested he be a special guest at our concert that very same evening. After some thought he kindly agreed. Alireza soon arrived in Piacenza and I had the opportunity to get to know one of the most charming and kind persons in the world. And an extraordinary musician -- a master of the old Persian santoor, an instrument of many voices that sings like an angelic choir under Alireza's hammers. When they performed the third and last movement of the concert, the audience was mesmerized, and so was I. Once more, the Magic Fairy was with us. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not. I saw someone in tears when Markus started to sing a sort of mystic, ancestral chorus with the audience. The music in this album is absolutely new but within it breathes a very ancient, sunken soul, a hidden root. Alireza and Markus were so kind as to give me this beautiful recording they made in Italy three years ago. I also have to thank Simon Stockhausen, Markus's brother, who mixed and mastered this album with a state-of-the-art quality. I am very proud to now have Markus and Alireza in our catalog and I hope this album may give you the same intimate, graceful, peaceful atmosphere these musicians have given me. The meaning of Hamdelaneh is 'with the same heart'."
Personnel: Markus Stockhausen - trumpet, flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet, voice; Alireza Mortazavi - santoor.
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DCLP 008CD
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Vincenzo Ramaglia is a Roman composer active in contemporary music experimentation and in what he calls PEM ("popular experimental music"). After the academic training -- at the end of which he won the TIM (Tournoi International de Musique) with an orchestral work -- his music research insinuates itself into the alchemy between score and improvisation, between electronics, acoustic instruments (often investigated in their extended techniques) and voice. Atomic City is the fourth album by Vincenzo Ramaglia, landing of a long research path that begins more than ten years earlier and it is marked by the three recording projects before this unexpected electronic turn. In 2007, Michele Coralli of Blow Up defined his first CD, Formaldeide as a "place of impossible meeting between Coleman Hawkins and Salvatore Sciarrino." Regarding the second CD, Chimera (2008), Max Marchini of Rockerilla called the album "an admirable interface at the zenith of the starry sky of intelligent and improvised jazz and new contemporary music." PVC Smoking (2011), his third CD, is an IDM score with improvisations, combining electronics and acoustic instruments. After seven years of reflection, silence, construction, and deepening of an electronic setup without a computer, Atomic City is a surprise, an album finally naked, devoid of any score, but with an intricate maze of analog sequences, composed on the machines as on a pentagram, almost in a thoughtful orchestral counterpoint, and manipulated in real time by the author, to which Renato Ciunfrini reacts to with clarinet improvisations. In a sense, Atomic City is the promised land of all the peregrinations and breaks that precede it. The synthesis - unexpectedly coherent and explosive in his unprecedented language - of a vast collection of seemingly contradictory urgencies. And it is, in fact, popular experimental music.
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DCLP 006CD
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Another true masterpiece. A Mid Autumn Night's Dream faithfully report a one-shot concert that took place at Conservatorio Nicolini in Piacenza on October 1st, 2016. The four giants of new music never played together before: Keith Tippett, Julie Tippetts, Lino Capra Vaccina, and Paolo Tofani. As the lights turned off something magic started. A spontaneous interplay, an amazing flowing of notes. The subject was the night, its mystic flavors. Paolo Tofani, now a Hindi monk, is a living legend in Italian avantgarde music having been the driving force of the band Area in the seventies. He worked and recorded with many musicians including John Cage, Alvin Curran, Steve Lacy, just to mention a few. His last album, Real Essence (2015), an acoustic solo album, impressed the late Greg Lake who eventually wrote the liner notes. Lino Capra Vaccina provided the visionary sound of the seminal Italian ensemble Aktuala then formed the legendary Telaio Magnetico with Franco Battiato and Juri Camisasca, and later played percussion in La Scala Orchestra with Claudio Abbado. In Italy he is a true legend and a respected musician. His first solo album, Antico Adagio (DS 027-1LP/027CD) along with his last one Metafisiche del Suono (DCLP 002CD/LP), are considered amongst the very best avant garde albums ever. Keith Tippett is another living legend in British jazz music -- band leader, composer, and visionary pianist -- with an uncompromising career full of outstanding gems. A larger audience knows him as a member of King Crimson or the leader of Centipede. His skills go from contemporary jazz to larger compositions for orchestra and classical music as well. One of his latest piano solo album, Mujician IV live in Piacenza, has been critically acclaimed all over the world. Julie Tippetts lent her fantastic voice to various situations, many times side by side with her husband Keith. The team called one of their duo album, Couple in Spirit (1988), as they are in life and art. Julie is a fantastic musician who added a magic touch, a siren call to this masterpiece.
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DCLP 006LP
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LP version. Another true masterpiece. A Mid Autumn Night's Dream faithfully report a one-shot concert that took place at Conservatorio Nicolini in Piacenza on October 1st, 2016. The four giants of new music never played together before: Keith Tippett, Julie Tippetts, Lino Capra Vaccina, and Paolo Tofani. As the lights turned off something magic started. A spontaneous interplay, an amazing flowing of notes. The subject was the night, its mystic flavors. Paolo Tofani, now a Hindi monk, is a living legend in Italian avantgarde music having been the driving force of the band Area in the seventies. He worked and recorded with many musicians including John Cage, Alvin Curran, Steve Lacy, just to mention a few. His last album, Real Essence (2015), an acoustic solo album, impressed the late Greg Lake who eventually wrote the liner notes. Lino Capra Vaccina provided the visionary sound of the seminal Italian ensemble Aktuala then formed the legendary Telaio Magnetico with Franco Battiato and Juri Camisasca, and later played percussion in La Scala Orchestra with Claudio Abbado. In Italy he is a true legend and a respected musician. His first solo album, Antico Adagio (DS 027-1LP/027CD) along with his last one Metafisiche del Suono (DCLP 002CD/LP), are considered amongst the very best avant garde albums ever. Keith Tippett is another living legend in British jazz music -- band leader, composer, and visionary pianist -- with an uncompromising career full of outstanding gems. A larger audience knows him as a member of King Crimson or the leader of Centipede. His skills go from contemporary jazz to larger compositions for orchestra and classical music as well. One of his latest piano solo album, Mujician IV live in Piacenza, has been critically acclaimed all over the world. Julie Tippetts lent her fantastic voice to various situations, many times side by side with her husband Keith. The team called one of their duo album, Couple in Spirit (1988), as they are in life and art. Julie is a fantastic musician who added a magic touch, a siren call to this masterpiece.
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DCLP 004X-LP
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Dark Companion come up roses again with dazzling, never-before-heard, haunting compositions and songs by Jeanette Sollén, compiled from her archive specifically for this album. Transparent emerald green audiophile vinyl; Edition of 300 (hand-numbered).
Sollén on the collection: "My first recordings were on an old tape recorder in my childhood bedroom. I spent a lot of time with that machine. Listening to the radio and pressing the green and red buttons when something I liked came on. And I seemed to have liked a lot. One tape I still have, from when I was about six, contains an eclectic aural tapestry filled with fragments from all kinds of music. And then, in the middle of some hit song, my own singing and chatting appears. My fascination with the machine grew and I soon began to record interviews with family, friends, and neighbors. Even random people passing in the streets. I also started recording my own songs in a more organized way, on separate cassettes labeled 'My songs'. At around nine years of age I recorded 'Stars in Space'. I remember it very clearly. I'd written the lyrics in English, and the recording contained various sound effects I'd added while singing, such as rhythmically stomping in gravel. The first line went: 'Space is a big black world, full of fire, we call them staaaaars -- Stars in space, in space, in space, in space...' Looking back on these memories, I can safely say that not much has changed. The media might be different, but the recording machine is still my favorite toy. Voice and ambient sounds are still my main material. And the human experience in this mesmerizing, communicating universe, is still my topic of choice."
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DCLP 004CD
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2015 release. Following his time in Aktuala, Lino Capra Vaccina published a seminal album in 1976, Antico Adagio, recently removed from the clutches of the vultures of rare disk from Die Schachtel (DS 027-1LP/DS 027CD). A few years after, another unmissable gem waiting for future reprints. Back to the studio after the incredible success of the reprint of Antico Adagio, Lino wanted to continue on the path laid out in his historical album: compositions, intuitions, emotions that were maturing for years, resting as the like of a good Borgogna wine, now ready to be shared with a wider audience. Also, for this new work, to his percussion, gong, tablas, bells, vibraphone, cymbals, dishes, and strange instruments natives Lino did not want to apply any "trick". All the sounds you'll hear in this extraordinary journey are strictly acoustic, no any kind of electronics are involved. Playing with tape delays, co-adjuvanted by a sound engineer visionary as Alberto Callegari, located at Elfo Studios which is a wonderful state-of-the-art place amidst the woods in the country of Piacenza. Max Marchini has produced this album with pure analog intents. Lino wanted around him three companions extraordinary as Paolo Tofani, legendary composer and guitarist of Italian prog/avant-garde band Area at the Mandhura for a breathtaking duet in "Dialoghi Tra Suoni (Dialogues Between Sounds)", Camillo Mozzoni on oboe, oboe d'amore, and English horn wove arabesques of arcane memory in "Archaic Armonico", and the old mate Juri Camisasca who stretched layers of voices in the enchanted "Ancrestrale Andante (Andante Ancestral)". Eons away from any new age suggestions, the music of Lino Capra Vaccina, in constant evolution, discovers pages submerged by ancient memories shared. The throb of skins beatings brings scents of the time; together with the voice, that as well remembered by Joan La Barbara, it is the original instrument. An album that marks a new stage in the new music. A disc where the sound is at the center, as the Klang contrapposto Foné, in an emotional universe of incomparable beauty that takes the listener to a different perception of time and space. A true masterpiece that is about to became a very sought-after item, this first limited edition of individually numbered and hand-bounded.
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DCLP 004LP
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LP version. 2015 release. Following his time in Aktuala, Lino Capra Vaccina published a seminal album in 1976, Antico Adagio, recently removed from the clutches of the vultures of rare disk from Die Schachtel (DS 027-1LP/DS 027CD). A few years after, another unmissable gem waiting for future reprints. Back to the studio after the incredible success of the reprint of Antico Adagio, Lino wanted to continue on the path laid out in his historical album: compositions, intuitions, emotions that were maturing for years, resting as the like of a good Borgogna wine, now ready to be shared with a wider audience. Also, for this new work, to his percussion, gong, tablas, bells, vibraphone, cymbals, dishes, and strange instruments natives Lino did not want to apply any "trick". All the sounds you'll hear in this extraordinary journey are strictly acoustic, no any kind of electronics are involved. Playing with tape delays, co-adjuvanted by a sound engineer visionary as Alberto Callegari, located at Elfo Studios which is a wonderful state-of-the-art place amidst the woods in the country of Piacenza. Max Marchini has produced this album with pure analog intents. Lino wanted around him three companions extraordinary as Paolo Tofani, legendary composer and guitarist of Italian prog/avant-garde band Area at the Mandhura for a breathtaking duet in "Dialoghi Tra Suoni (Dialogues Between Sounds)", Camillo Mozzoni on oboe, oboe d'amore, and English horn wove arabesques of arcane memory in "Archaic Armonico", and the old mate Juri Camisasca who stretched layers of voices in the enchanted "Ancrestrale Andante (Andante Ancestral)". Eons away from any new age suggestions, the music of Lino Capra Vaccina, in constant evolution, discovers pages submerged by ancient memories shared. The throb of skins beatings brings scents of the time; together with the voice, that as well remembered by Joan La Barbara, it is the original instrument. An album that marks a new stage in the new music. A disc where the sound is at the center, as the Klang contrapposto Foné, in an emotional universe of incomparable beauty that takes the listener to a different perception of time and space. A true masterpiece that is about to became a very sought-after item, this first limited edition of individually numbered and hand-bounded.
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DCLP 002CD
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2017 release. For fans of the Italian avant-garde, few names inspire the loyalty and devotion offered to the percussionist and composer Lino Capra Vaccina -- a perfect emblem of the country's extraordinary movement of musical minimalism. He first gained note as a member of Aktuala, a project which laid the groundwork for an entire generation of practitioners following in their wake -- creating a hybrid of rock, avant-garde, and ancient musics, while incorporating a diverse number of sonic traditions from across the globe -- African, Middle Eastern, Indian, etc. Vaccina's career as composer has been marked by two distinct features, an incredibly high bar of quality and ambition, and a tragically slim amount of recorded output. Following his departure from Aktuala, he worked extensively with others, like Juri Camisasca, Franco Battiato, etc., and within the short-lived super group Telaio Magnetico, but his solo efforts have been slow to emerge, appearing as carefully considered statements which are so remarkable and singular, that they pull the rug from beneath the entire world of experimental approach. In 1978 he released the legendary LP Antico Adagio (DS 027-1LP/DS 027CD), and wouldn't be heard from again until 1992's equally extraordinary L'Attesa. In the years since, only a tiny handful of recordings have emerged, most recently in the hands of the Italian imprint Dark Companion, who now returns with Metafisiche Del Suono, the latest installment in Vaccina's astounding canon of work. Metafisiche Del Suono is elegance and constraint personified -- a crown jewel in a remarkable composer's long career. Like all of Vaccina's work, it rests in an undefinable realm, defying definition and category. Largely executed by the composer on a range of instruments -- vibraphone, chimes, bells, various percussion, piano, strings, gong, and metallophone -- it also features stunning contributions on oboe and English horn by Camillo Mozzoni, psaltery, dulcimer, guitar, and autoharp by Michael Tanner, and viola by Alison Cotton, on a handful of its works, vastly broadening the world of tonal interplay set forth by Vaccina. Across the album's six compositions, unfolds expanses of ambience; sheets of sound-physic wonders, which, while feeling entirely singular and personal, mange to crystallize a confounding range of human emotion and experience.
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DCLP 002LP
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LP version. 2017 release. For fans of the Italian avant-garde, few names inspire the loyalty and devotion offered to the percussionist and composer Lino Capra Vaccina -- a perfect emblem of the country's extraordinary movement of musical minimalism. He first gained note as a member of Aktuala, a project which laid the groundwork for an entire generation of practitioners following in their wake -- creating a hybrid of rock, avant-garde, and ancient musics, while incorporating a diverse number of sonic traditions from across the globe -- African, Middle Eastern, Indian, etc. Vaccina's career as composer has been marked by two distinct features, an incredibly high bar of quality and ambition, and a tragically slim amount of recorded output. Following his departure from Aktuala, he worked extensively with others, like Juri Camisasca, Franco Battiato, etc., and within the short-lived super group Telaio Magnetico, but his solo efforts have been slow to emerge, appearing as carefully considered statements which are so remarkable and singular, that they pull the rug from beneath the entire world of experimental approach. In 1978 he released the legendary LP Antico Adagio (DS 027-1LP/DS 027CD), and wouldn't be heard from again until 1992's equally extraordinary L'Attesa. In the years since, only a tiny handful of recordings have emerged, most recently in the hands of the Italian imprint Dark Companion, who now returns with Metafisiche Del Suono, the latest installment in Vaccina's astounding canon of work. Metafisiche Del Suono is elegance and constraint personified -- a crown jewel in a remarkable composer's long career. Like all of Vaccina's work, it rests in an undefinable realm, defying definition and category. Largely executed by the composer on a range of instruments -- vibraphone, chimes, bells, various percussion, piano, strings, gong, and metallophone -- it also features stunning contributions on oboe and English horn by Camillo Mozzoni, psaltery, dulcimer, guitar, and autoharp by Michael Tanner, and viola by Alison Cotton, on a handful of its works, vastly broadening the world of tonal interplay set forth by Vaccina. Across the album's six compositions, unfolds expanses of ambience; sheets of sound-physic wonders, which, while feeling entirely singular and personal, mange to crystallize a confounding range of human emotion and experience.
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