(01.19.05) Mousike Lab is a small Italian label run by the gents of Retina.it –Lino Monaco, Nucola Buono and Marco Messina — who collaborate in
other projects and who have released their first compilation. Entitled Condominium, its reference is J.G. Ballard’s distopian future
as imagined in the book of the same name, and their attempt with the
fifteen collected tracks here is to prevent the bleak possibility as
imagined by Ballard. Condominium is intended as a sonic structure, a
building filled with the artists whom the Retina.it crew wouldn’t mind
living next door. This is elevator music for a high rise that is
fascinated by the microsound, the fragile glitch, and the ephemeral
electronic pop sound.
Contributions to the high rise are uniformly excellent with some newer
faces living on the same floor as folk like Mondii, Tarwater, DJ
Vadim, Retina.it and Tadd Mullinix. Claudia Bonarelli offers “Tips
For Restless Youth,” a stuttering, skipping shopping list of
electronic squeaks and squirts. Bonarelli’s track drifts like a
humidifier mist, a delicate haze of glittering particles. Ether’s
“Contra” unfolds with bell-like tones before beginning a lengthy
transformation into a full-scale party track. The head-nodding beats
and vibraphone of DJ Vadim’s “Electric East Instrumental” is all about
sneaking out into the back stairwell for a lungful of marijuana smoke.
Slicker and Populous offer diaphanous melodies, phosphorescent with
glitch and static, while Frame invites a string quartet into his
electronically dappled apartment with “Frame” to provide backdrop to a
wavering EVP ghost. Pentole & Computer’s condominum is located in the
back of the building, just a floor or two up from the courtyard.
While thin melodies unspool in the living room against the
accompaniment of scattered percussion, the voices and street noises
from the gathered market outside rise up through the open windows and
interact with the music. Retina.it’s “Le Buitar” rattles as if the
musicians were making their recording in the bathroom, banging on the
pipes and singing into the sonorous echo chamber of the toilet bowl.
Condominium is an address I wouldn’t mind living at; the living spaces
all sing with delicate and wistful melodies and the common areas pulse
with breathless percussion. As an aesthetic statement, Retina.it’s
sonic building is a structure of unified heterogeneity. We fight back
against the bleak formlessness of the cinder block future by making
tiny music in our personal spaces. Every city needs a space like
this.
Condominium is out now on Mousike Lab featuring Claudia Bonarelli, Dj Vadim, Ether, Fm3, Frame, Modern Institute, , Mùm, Pentole & Computer, Populous, Retina.it, Slicker, Tadd Mullinix, Tarwater and Velma.
