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GRAPHICALSOUND – SHAPES (Synesthesia Recordings)

Behind graphicalSound is Matteo Milani, whom we recently heard for the first time in Vital Weekly 644 as one half of the U.S.O. Project. Milani started at the end of the 80s, splicing tape at radio stations. These days its all about the computer, ‘blending synthetic and organic sound material, sharing the Pierre Schaeffer ‘audio vision’ of musique concrete’. The four pieces on this release are nice, but hardly musique concrete, unless of course the sounds have been altered to such an extent that we don’t recognize the original input – that might very well be possible. Only in ‘Water Emotions’ we do recognize the water sounds and it seems that Milani here tries to play a cover of ‘Blanket Level Approach’ by The Hafler Trio. Its more ambient music of a highly digital kind, time stretched sounds, filtered with tons of granulating sound effects. Flowing like the best Hypnos release, but less based on analogue synthesizers and more computers. A minor difference, and probably not a very important one. Milani plays his music with great skill and this is a very nice ambient work. (Frans de Waard)

tracklist for Vital Weekly 663:

0000 Tune
0014 Baja – Deleth
0313 Lars Myvrell – The Gleaming Water (Monaco)
0615 Chas Smith – Nakadai
0918 Anna Zaradny – Mauve 1
1222 Ferran Fages – Desfer La Pausa
1535 Gianluca Becuzzi & Fabio Orsi – Snow Palace Hotel (C)
1837 graphicalSound – Water Emotions
2139 Alva Noto – Xerrox Sora
2442 Thomas Bel – Die Linien Des Herbstes
2743 Evapori – Rehearsal II
3046 Undo – Des Tournages
3352 James Whitehead – 4′33” As A Determined Object
3654 Antn Hrkwk – Infinite Juice Parade
3956 Simon Brown/Dylan Crichton – Stupid Desert
4037 Luca Mauri – A Quiet Storm
4341 Philipm Halke – A Place That I Said Goodbye To
4641 PM – Electronic Church 17.9.08
4943 Richard Ramirez
5252 Tune

listen to 663

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RAPPORTO CONFIDENZIALE (2009)

U.S.O. PROJECT+SELFISH – INHARMONICITY (Dvd-Video)

C’è poco di armonico in questa seconda release della videolabel Zerofeedback. Scorbutico è il termine che mi sono ritrovato fra le mani più spesso. Intanto la genesi.
Il progetto nasce dalla collaborazione fra Matteo Milani e Federico Placidi, in arte U.S.O. Project – Unidentified Sound Object, e Giovanni Artignano – in arte Selfish. Entrambe le polarità di questo progetto si occupano di arte digitale, i primi di musica il secondo di immagine in movimento. L’operazione messa in piedi è assai particolare perché racchiude in circa sessanta minuti, suddivisi in tre tracce, quella che sarei portato a chiamare performance – o liveset. La colonna audio fa da struttura portante all’opera attorno alla quale vengono campionate immagini che rispondono sincronicamente alle frequenze sonore. Il dato reale dal quale attinge Antignano è lo spazio visivo della città, il paesaggio urbano d’un agglomerato di indefinibile collocazione geografica, le sue immagini danno forma al paesaggio sonoro generato dalla colonna audio di Milani e Placidi.
Lo spazio urbano emerge da un magma sonoro e visivo fatto d’un numero sempre crescente di linee orizzontali che lascia intravedere appena immagini scorrevoli da destra a sinistra di scheletri architettonici. La prima traccia Girl Running (8’43”) sembra volerci raccontare un prologo dello spazio che andremo a visitare nei capitoli successivi, un’origine spettrale dello spazio urbano che verrà, narrata in scala di grigi ad alto contrasto. Invisible Words (12’41”) ci catapulta, fra distorsioni sonore, entro un punto di vista elettronico su d’una città fatta di grattacieli, una specie di occhio meccanico incapace di cogliere un’immagine chiara e definita. L’instabilità del quadro è frenetica.
Le interferenze incessanti sono praticamente invisibili per l’occhio, ben oltre il percepibile, ed è in questa meticolosa maniacalità della ricerca dell’imperfezione che risiede una delle caratteristiche peculiari di questo InharmoniCity. Una ricerca perseguita ostinatamente per tutta la durata del lavoro che rappresenta la concretizzazione dello sforzo individuale tipica dell’artista sperimentale, ovvero colui per il quale il film può esistere solamente entro determinate condizioni d’autarchia estetica; è entro questa modalità produttiva che da sempre il cinema sperimentale produce le proprie opere e proprio per questo è considerato difficile da vedere o, se si preferisce, scorbutico.
Il valore della sperimentazione non è mai fine a se stesso, è una traiettoria da percorrere per allargare i confini di quel che è noto, spesso attraverso l’eccesso ma invariabilmente andando nella direzione opposta al flusso della norma e dei codici preconfezionati. Jack Smith, John Mekas, Stan Brakhage, Len Lye, Paolo Gioli, Alberto Grifi, Walter Ruttmann e Takahiko Iimura sono solo alcuni dei cineasti che pur avendo realizzato dei film che solitamente si è portati a nominare come inguardabili hanno lasciato un segno indelebile nella storia del cinema e, molto probabilmente, se fossero ancora a noi contemporanei utilizzerebbero proprio il linguaggio della performance o del liveset per dare forma al proprio istinto.
Dunque InharmonyCity è sperimentazione audiovisiva che sfocia nella terza traccia …From the Past…Out of the Future (41’04”) che a voler essere sbrigativi si potrebbe raccontare come un Koyaanisqatsi anfetaminico.

InharmonyCity è un’opera coraggiosa, che travalica molti generi dell’audiovideo contemporaneo, vicina a molte produzioni internazionali, una su tutte: lo splendido Kuvaputki diretto da Edward Quist sulle musiche dei Pan Sonic.

A questo punto perché non chiamarsi registi? (Alessio Galbiati)

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SODAPOP (2008)

U.S.O. PROJECT – INHARMONICITY

Sometimes there are cds that take a little longer than others to be listened to, and sometimes you have to stick a memo on your face to do so. This introduction is perhaps not appropriate for InharmoniCity, but be sure that this is not stuff for those who listen to “cocktail” or “incidental/background” electronic music (with all due respect to the category and its designers…), at the same time it is not even a demanding Stockhausen-like work, which you wouldn’t even try to face without a good concentration, let’s say that in a way this work is somewhat halfway between academic electronic music and certain types of “soundtracking” from the last ten years. Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi are clearly interested in digital music and electroacoustic improvisation, and this in fact is what they offer. They remembered to me softer materials, like Pateras, some things of Kim Cascone, the and/OAR stuff and so forth. In this disc – its cover (for some reason that escapes me) reminds me of the movie Vesna Va Veloce - the three long suites create a soft atmosphere, although it is not in any way background music, I would instead define it a well done “soundtrack”, also in terms of sound quality that is unexceptionable.
Hisses, rustles, gusts of sounds, while others are kept specially low in a game of volumes that is somewhat the pivot around which the album revolves. It is required to listen to this work very carefully, since it is somewhat cerebral and it designs a well-studied landscape. The silence is one of the traits that characterize the appearance of this work, so it happens that in the forty minute journey of the final track …From The Past… Out Of The Future, there are several blackouts and changes of perspective. This results in a performance that in its calm hides some kind of anxiety, certainly gloomy colors. Lately I have the impression that in some spheres noise is finally back, almost reaching popularity, while in other contexts abstraction and ‘expressionless’ prevail. This certainly is not a criticism, more like a statement of fact. It’s also true that if any music belongs to its own time, I would say that this is the right time to escape from reality … Escape From New York all-round. (Andrea Ferraris)

U.S.O. PROJECT – UNIDENTIFIED SOUND OBJECT

Self-published by authors Federico Placidi and Matteo Milani, a.k.a. “Unidentified Sound Project”, this album opens with a section entitled “Quantum Dripping” (three tracks), which relays their non-compromising sound research that deals with stylized interferences. Nervous sound structures (which are then modulated in the subsequent “Rebirth” section), elementary sound particles, cacophonies and granular sound frizzles consistently abuse the electronic medium. Perhaps this is a foil to certain less radical audio expressions, considering that Milani used to make a living as sound-editor for movies, radio and television. It’s a clear contrast because the project – with no frills – shows a definitive coherence, a terse power, but gives no clue to those not interested in structured audio technicalities. The authors underline a separation with the listener, indicating their refusal to create a work that “must” communicate. The clusters of musical “concretions” here seem then to self-organize, following internal algorithmic protocols. It’s a procedure that the authors define as “transient drawing” and they combine it with the editing of extremely small sound-wave pieces. It’s an interesting process, but quite hard indeed to metabolize.
Aurelio Cianciotta

[via Neural.it]

U.S.O. PROJECT – INHARMONICITY (Synesthesia Recordings)

The Italian label Synesthesia Recordings is ‘to be intended as a repository of live improvised electroacoustic works. The main goal is to retrieve the late Renaissance praxis of ‘Ricercare’ intended as exploration of a technical device playing it, subverting it in different ways’.

Translated to the world of audio, this is done by the U.S.O Project, a duo of Matteo Milani (from Milan actually) and Federico Placidi, both of whom I never heard. Both have a background with digital sound synthesis and acoustic sound treatments. U.S.O. stands for Unidentified Sound Object and very much like flying objects, their music moves about, seemingly off course. Whatever they do, it mainly sounds electronically. There is hardly an acoustic device in sight with these boys, or perhaps there were, but then there are well hidden in the electronic mass of sound that is cooked up here.

In ‘Invisible Worlds’ the radio waves make up the sound sources. The long ‘…From The Past… Out of The Future…’ is fortyminutes long and the most ’silent’ piece here. I think this piece sums up what this project stands for: long meandering sounds, which come from nowhere and which don’t seem to go anywhere. Just a stream of silent sounds. Like with Concrete Cookie & The Maggot Farmer release reviewed elsewhere, this is not about carefully composing music, but playing moods and textures, albeit of a somewhat lighter side of the moon. A refined late night listening session. (Frans de Waard)

tracklist for Vital Weekly 644:

0000 Tune
0014 Tujiko Noriko & Lawrence English & John Chantler – Make Me Your Private Party
0340 General Fuzz – Starry
0730 Keijo – Ain’t Got No Home
1025 Mika Martini & Oscar Chaves – Revolver Cenizas
1328 Anders Dahl – Doorbell, Tuning Fork, Crotale, Clarinet etc.
1630 Concrete cookie & The Maggot Farmer – Tropic Of Cancer
1927 C. Hilton – The Smoking Mirror 1
2233 Cynas
2610 U.S.O. Project – Girl Running
2916 Mubles – Beercan Suite
3214 Tune

listen to 644

Read the current issue here

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