Synesthesia Recordings

SOUND PROECTOR (2009)

U.S.O. PROJECT – NACHTMUSIK AUS 01

What I like minimalistic improvisational electronics for is its intimacy, one can even say “homeness”. It seems that it is right here, very close, is creeping and fluttering hoping to leave its deep and significant trace in life of those to whom it had to penetrate. You listen and see musicians, designers hunched up at their laptops, with their virtual or rather tangible controllers ruling the sound surrounding space. They change the picture, on some transparent body of airy mass they scrap their abstract messages. Like an Italian duet Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi making project U.S.O. Project, the title of which stands for Unidentified Sound Object. That’s really problematic to identify the sources of the sounds, manipulated by Milani and Placidi in their latest work Nachtmusik aus 01. I suppose there’s double bass accompanying live project in 2006 (this record can be found on YouTube). Be it so or not, here’s of no doubt the material originally born on this planet without using computers and synthesizers. Though under creative manipulations’ influence it turns into a voluminous, rustling, squeaking, droning audio structure, unique sound object. One can creep abreast with it, run along flat surfaces rounding obstacles one by one. Happen to be in one big room with them. The hell with room – inside a huge hangar! Hangar filled with cases, boxes, technique, radios, light devices producing dull light… Carefully move through the dark, narrow paths looking back and taking a breath to avoid a sudden attack of claustrophobia… pi micron

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THE SILENT BALLET (2009)

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

Silence and electro-acoustic noise are the main components in the three suites of experimental music by the Italian Unidentified Sound Object (aka U.S.O. Project). Packed in artwork depicting the charcoal remains of a post-apocalyptic city lies a one hour and one minute audio tour by Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi. Their shared passion in the collaborative strength of audio and video inspired them to paint a soundtrack on Selfish‘s cinematic compositions. The lateral working method reminds of the premise applied in the Qatsi Trilogy, only with the difference that the U.S.O. Project’s effort lean more toward John Cage‘s infamous 4:33 approach.
Silence is the dominating presence in the opening suite of the release, and although there is a distinct absence of sound at times, inspiration was drawn from the avant-garde technique of worldizing – recording and re-recording samples in various surroundings while tweaking the setting of speakers and microphones – which results in a complex, three-dimensional canvas. The latent presence of silence stretches out as a vast plain, evolving to the blunted ambient that haunts the transition of the opening compositions. Draped over the audible nothingness are layers of sound-constructions sketching the warped outlines of the gradually developing narrative and its accompanying sonic scenery.
Once the audio tour enters the suburbs of Inharmonicity via the tones of “Invisible Words”, the noise component’s parameter starts to display spastic shifts in its pattern. Screeching feedback and strokes of distorted noise break through cracks of the eroding city walls, battering the listener’s ears. The rampaging assault of crushed magnetic pulses will try to force you to shorten your visit in this crumbling city. Near the closing of the main suite, an escape route from the sonic violence is found. In a maze of reverb-filled chambers, the omnipresent battering noise is muffled and offers a well-deserved breather while the audio tour steadily eases into its closing movement.
As the trip through Inharmonicity comes to an end, the distinct presence of glitching noise suddenly forces itself to the forefront, like a noise-accumulating whirlwind on a clear sky, until nothing remains besides a massive, pulsating wall of sound. The bone-crushing, distorted layers filled with shapeshifting samples disappear as suddenly as they arose. All that remains are the aftershocks in the form of distant, resonating soundscapes.
The release offers a high contrast between types of minimal explorations – featuring both the smallest of glitches and ear-battering droning noise, challenging the listener. The narrative properties of Inharmonicity each have their appropriate position in an enjoyable, complex electro-acoustic massage. Jurgen Verhasselt

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BLOW UP MAGAZINE (2009)

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

La collaborazione fra U.S.O. Project (duo di sperimentazione elettroacustica formato da Matteo Milani e Federico Placidi che si divide fra Roma e Milano) e Selfish (progetto visuale di Giovanni Antignano che spazia fra video art e performance live) dà vita ad un prodotto audiovisivo dal linguaggio complesso e articolato, eppure ricco di immaginazione ed emotività. “InharmoniCity” si divide in tre sezioni distinte: ‘Girl Running’ e ‘Invisible Words’ sono percorsi attraverso il tessuto urbano metropolitano che scandiscono un flusso congiunto di immagini e suoni dal ritmo serrato, ‘…From The Past… Out of The Future…’ procede invece utilizzando il video come una tela su cui pixel e frequenze tracciano segni informali, fra sequenze in chiaroscuro e bagliori luminescenti. Un interessante esperimento sinestetico portato a termine con lucidità e padronanza dei propri mezzi. Massimiliano Busti

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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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VITAL WEEKLY (2009)

GRAPHICALSOUND – SHAPES

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

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VITAL WEEKLY (2008)

U.S.O. PROJECT – INHARMONICITY

The Italian label Synesthesia Recordings is ‘to be intended as a repository of 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 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. 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

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NEURAL (2008)

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. 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. Aurelio Cianciotta

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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

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BLOW UP MAGAZINE (2008)

U.S.O. PROJECT – INHARMONICITY

Unidentified Sound Object is the meaning of the acronym behind which hide the two sound-handlers Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi (interviewed in this issue). They start from semi-concrete elements, patterns of stochastic self-generated drawings, transformation and organization of synthesis processes in order to achieve sculpted sound masses which evolve slowly in time.
On one hand, U.S.O. relate to a particular tradition of the classical electronic music (especially italian), which did not obtain each and every sound from pure synthesis, creatively using instead their sound sources; on the other hand they hark back to video-arts languages dominated by processes of accumulation and/or slow transformation. If one appreciates the experimental tone – especially that which U.S.O. state to match performative aspect and other expressive realities – one ends up perceiving the limits of the audio cd, which is a pale image of what we can expect from the live version. Michele Coralli

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