What I like best about this album is that the stories told are all about texture and emotion, sometimes dark and powerful, sometimes delicate yet commanding. The string instruments can make a huge variety of thrilling sounds, trilling and bowing, scratching and sounding wooden and hollow…
Supernatural Instrumental
Electronic and organic instrumental cello-themed music. I like to call it Supernatural Instrumental, because it is made with strings that make the spirits tingle. The cello travels well into these speculative fiction sound environments, the whole album is a series of flowing compositions, a rich inventive electronic exploration of bowed strings and passion and technology. The work Glitch focuses my mind on the aesthetic of interferences, errors, and sound granules in a melding of acoustics and electronics. The artistry is phenomenal and consistent through the geistscape.
Imagine that ancient chaos still haunts the royal theater. “Gagaku” (5:48), I insist that the ancient imperial spirits probably cannot see us, here in the listening world, I believe we are safe. The historic form of Gakaku blends various traditions of music to accompany slow ceremonies, it was often heard in the imperial court in Japan, a specialized and very elegant reflective form of ancient background music that slows everything down. What I hear makes me think of that historic musical style to start off with, and then goes into entirely new zones and dimensions. Between the tracks, the next one builds on the last one always going up, “Steps” (4:58) that keep moving with determination into oblivion. I like the sequential distortion and then the havoc blossoms, while somehow keeping a sense of entropic distance in places.
Passing grit to the surface ::
“Data Transfer” (4:16) begins with the sound of raw power scraping and grinding, there are voices, this is difficult. Soon cosmic havoc takes hold, there is an emotional visitor who turns out to live here. The force is short and brutal, feel the pressure, interference cannot mask the certainty that there are humans in there, the message upheaves passion, and the song has changed completely. There is something hidden with us, here in the dark, and there is a long way to go. The sound at first makes me think of bullfrogs in a night pond, bow strokes call and answer, thick and beautiful “Oxygen” (8:24), the call extends, the answer holds echoes, endless rusty weeping walls and chimeric winds, then the bowed strokes trickle away. I think I see something, electronic visitors capering about at a great distance, or somehow remotely, I can just barely hear them. Then the choppers sweep through and almost snag us, “Bit Pass” (6:50), the discussion is thorough or sad, like a ghost on the moor in the season of deep frost, a ghost calling sweetly, opening blockages, passing grit to the surface.
Up until this track the beat has been unnecessary, now here comes the awesome power of grunge strings, “Chromosome XX” (3:58), this is the throbbing monster cello slow get down number, this one has legs and is short and is a cello monster, a healer, a savage beast. It all starts with a funky beat then takes you someplace different, then it tears off your head and gets away.
What I like best about this album is that the stories told are all about texture and emotion, sometimes dark and powerful, sometimes delicate yet commanding. The string instruments can make a huge variety of thrilling sounds, trilling and bowing, scratching and sounding wooden and hollow, varnished and polished, dark and scary, brooding and final, even gritty and primitive, all at once. And the strings are not alone, there are electronics and percussives, and ghosts I tell you.
The error is there to remind the inexhaustible complexity of reality. ~Flavia Massimo
Flavia Massimo is a contemporary cellist, sound designer and event curator, trained in classical and electronic music. She composes soundtracks for exhibitions, audio-guides, dance and theatre performances and creates interactive art installations. Her intense schedule of live performances brings her to work with several well renowned artists of classical, pop and contemporary music in Italy and worldwide. She conducts the workshop Artigianato elettronico del suono, a theoretical and practical laboratory, guiding the audience in the creation of a personal sound through sound-walks, acoustic exercises, digital manipulation and processing of music and ambient samples. She worked, as sound designer, with the CRM (Centro Ricerche Musicali), music research center in Rome. She is the artistic director of Paesaggi Sonori, an unusual festival of cultural events in exceptional naturalistic locations.
Glitch is available on Audiobulb. [Bandcamp | Release page]
