333 Loops is a field of inquiry with a potential duration of between 110,889 seconds and 110,889 years, of which this volume, constituting numbers 148, 149 and 150, fortunately, comprises just 35 minutes—not that more would be unwelcome, but this listening lifetime is all too limited, and other records are available.
Emiliano Romanelli, co-founder of now defunct duo Tu m’, who released significantly on Line and Dekorder among others, launched an ongoing project in 2012 focused on generative systems and the perceptual relationships between sound, light and space. 333 Loops (Volume 1) is the first part of a CD/DL live series documenting the eponymous sound events generated by the modular system the Italian electronicist designed; this involved an archive of 333 pre-recorded sound loops produced between 2008-2011 by a sound synthesis software played in different acoustic environments, captured largely with the internal mics of digital and analog recorders. Subsequently, via a custom software (2 loop players, 2 EQs, 4 delays, 1 digital room reverb, 4 LFOs), the loops are used as modules in a random process of juxtapositions (A//B) and multiplications (333²), able to generate live 110,889 sound events to be diffused in the room via a multichannel sound system. So far, so hermetic. Beyond detailing the minutiae of experimental process and gear set-up for process-buffs and tech-heads, will it ring my ambient chimes, you may be thinking.
Organ-y wisps waft through an evacuated space with little linear development or dynamic structure evident. The depth of field is notable in that it seems formed without contrastive stratification, rather overlapping layers within a relatively narrow band of ungrained frequencies. A pulse is occasionally felt, though more a kind of rotational recursion, like a musicized Calder mobile. A kind of glassine dream mesmerism emerges, as Romanelli holds back on sending in the ambient clouds in favor of a more thinly diffused vaporousness, sustaining a more lowercase minimalism of means redolent of earlier Tu m’ work (cf. Monochromes Vol. 1). There’s something strangely eerie about it, a feeling further cemented by a Picabia quote, ‘the future is a monotonous instrument,’ whose sinister resonance tells of possible dystopian traces beneath a deceptively serene skin.
333 Loops is a field of inquiry with a potential duration of between 110,889 seconds and 110,889 years, of which this volume, constituting numbers 148, 149 and 150, fortunately, comprises just 35 minutes—not that more would be unwelcome, but this listening lifetime is all too limited, and other records are available. Less facetiously, this document of Romanelli’s performance at the medieval cloister of Ex Convento dei Cappuccini, Colli del Tronto, as part of Within 01 festival, September 2013, feels well judged—and not just in duration; representing as it does Romanelli’s live and discographic debut after a hiatus, following 13 years with Tu m’, a 110,889 year-long set would have been pushing it a bit. Archness aside, this is a fine release, in several respects—expertly mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi and housed in design finery.
333 Loops is available on Terziruolo.
