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Erimos |
RADIO TRANSMISSIONS
- Battiti, Radio 3, by Nicola Catalano 3 mar 2008 - MB + Sparkle in Grey: The Last Cloud / MB+Hue+Fhivel: Erimos
REVIEWS
Mario Biserni / e.g., Sands-ZineElettroacustica: un progetto ambizioso ben riuscito Gli elementi hanno sempre esercitato una certa attrazione sui musicisti (pensate a esempi celebri come l’eponimo LP della Third Ear Band e “Two And Two” di Christina Kubisch e Fabrizio Plessi), sia per l’immaginario atavico che sono in grado di evocare e sia per l’aspetto esoterico che da tempi immemorabili si lega a tale immaginario, ma anche più semplicemente per i suoni che da esse scaturiscono e che hanno mosso la fantasia di innumerevoli compositori (pensate al sibilare dell’aria in movimento, al gorgogliare fluido dell’acqua, al crepitare del fuoco ed agli infiniti suoni rapportabili all’elemento ‘terra’). Non stupisce affatto, quindi, che un tipo curioso qual è Matteo Uggeri si sia imbarcato nella realizzazione di una quadrilogia “Between The Elements” concepita in stretta collaborazione con quel Maurizio Bianchi unanimemente riconosciuto come uno dei precursori dell’ambient di origine industrial e, conseguentemente, di sottogeneri quali l’isolazionismo e il dark-ambient. E non stupisce neppure, visto il proverbiale entusiasmo catalizzatore di Matteo, la risposta positiva di numerosi musicisti alla sua chiamata per la realizzazione di tale ambizioso progetto. Caso mai, quale particolarità a livello di concetto, v’è il fatto che in questo caso gli elementi non sono mai concepiti nella loro forma pura (aria, acqua, fuoco e terra) ma in foggia ibrida. La prima parte della quadrilogia (già recensita da ‘ics’ Ferraris), portata a termine da Maurizio Bianchi insieme all’ensemble Sparkle in Grey animato dall’Uggeri, era liquida ma concettualmente ‘campata in aria’, dal momento che si intitolava “Nefelodhis” (dal greco ‘nuvole’ o ‘nuvoloso’). Philippe Blache, ProgArchives Erimos is the name of a collaborative project released by Maurizio Bianchi (pionnier of noise & “bionic” electronic music) with Matteo Uggeri (Hue) and Luca Bergero (Fhievel). As suggested by the title, this record is a sonic metaphor of environmental paradise and meditational / most reflexive aspects of human life. Eremos means “hermitage” and solitary spiritual vocation. The album features a lot of electronic treatments, eerie drones punctuated by a great variety of sound objects. The atmosphere is colourfully repetitive, based on long droning phrases and micro interferences. Hue and Fhievel’s usual microcospic embodied soundsculptures are perfectly combined with M.B’s cloudy minimalism. Eremos includes a serie of coherent, controlled linear progressions that deliver a flow of musical energies. Fabulous psychedelectronics that edvocate interior reasonances of the self. Erimos is a window to the absolute, reaching a state of innocence and inifinite quiteness. It really deserves a listening in our turbulant, traumatic and under-expressive atomized world. Susanna Bolle, Rare Frequency/The Wire October 2008 favourites records playlist:
http://www.rarefrequency.com/music/lists/ Ian Holloway, Wonderful Wooden Reason The Maurizio Bianchi (mb) comeback trail continues unabated with this collaboration with Matteo Uggeri (Hue) and Luca Bergero (Fhievel) on Digitalis Recordings. The trio utilise a battery of electronic sounds to create a surprisingly warm and immersive mud bath of sound. I use 'mud bath' selectively - not to conjure ideas of 'murkiness' be it of sound or conception but as a way of conveying the stickiness and thickness of many of the sound-sources and the resultant album. The music on Erimos surrounds, flows and carries the listener in it's embrace. It is a mesmerising composition that steps outside the confines of it's soundsources through the craftsmanship of those involved who have built a beautiful piece of work that has not strayed far from my seedee player in the month that I've owned it. David Stubbs, The Wire
Maarten, White Heat Maurizio Bianchi is well known for his noise and industrial music, now for almost 30 years. From 1980 until 1984, Bianchi has released some 25 solo records, LPs which have given him a legendary status in the industrial music world. Personal – Bianchi became a Jehova witness - and financial reasons stopped him from making music for about 15 years. When he restarted his musical activities in 1998 a remarkable change occurred: he started to play together with other musicians. His discography is since then nicely divided in solo work vs. collaborations. Erimos is the second chapter of a 'quadrilogy' called 'Between the elements'. For Erimos, MB has decided to team up with two younger musicians. The names of Matteo Uggeri and Luca Bergero don't ring a bell, but that's changed after hearing this album. What we get is a beautiful, careful arranged and terminated travel through the abstract world of a desert. Drone music is often described as a soundtrack through any kind of landscape and the choice of the desert as background for this music fits perfectly. The emptiness of a desert, but also the bleakness of the beach, keeps fascinating artists. As kids, we loved looking to sand from very nearby. The beach is always seen as a whole, but we loved to lie down on a towel – preferably next to a nice lady, or sand castle – and just look at the tiny pieces that made up this whole. The distant view shows the whole, the closer look reveals the elements and the spaces between. The cover art shows a bleak image of a desert, a place where one is alone, only confronted with oneself. 'Erimos' is the Greek word for hermit, we read. "Who is the hermit? He is an ascetic who lives alone in solitary and deserted spots, he keeps himself apart from the world in order to devote himself entirely to contemplation and to live in destitution". Is this what this music is about? Is it better to listen to 'Erimos' with a headphone? Does the closer look, the elaborate study of a sound in all of its aspects reveal a richness we would otherwise miss? Surely, the sound and structure of this album does have a closed, hermetic dimension that really pleases us. The closer look, the introspection – sonically translated by turning up the volume, using headphones, but also by listening concentrated and maybe even alone to this music – it all adds to the experience. MB worshippers will get this anyway, for newbies this may be just the time to join in. Vittore Baroni, Rumore (privé) Secondo capitolo nella serie dedicata ai quattro elementi da MB (Maurizio Bianchi), in questo caso affiancato da Hue (Matteo Uggeri) e Fhievel (Luca Bergero), Erimos (Digitalis Recordings) evoca l’aridità e solitudine del deserto con una minimale reiterazione di cristallini drone, che si distendono placidi od emergono squillanti dalle eremitiche sabbie tra micro-sinfonismi e ispide glitcherie. Meno contaminato con generi extra-ambient del cd gemello Nefelodhis, ma comunque di forte impatto e coerenza interna. Paolo Ippoliti, Tsunami Notes la prima entry che google restituisce digitando Erimos porta al sito d’una così nominata casa farmaceutica, dedita alla scoperta, sviluppo e ricerca di molecole terapeutiche in grado di trattare il cancro. La Erimos, apparentemente, detiene diritti esclusivi d’utilizzo di un portfolio di tali molecole. nel settore del sito che spiega il modus operandi dell’azienda, un’animazione ci illustra il ciclo generativo delle cellule cancerose e l’azione delle molecole antagoniste che la Erimos tratta, che praticamente bloccano l’azione dell’inibitore proteico che impedisce alle cellule cancerose di decadere e morire. tutto questo c’entra poco con l’Erimos del titolo - anche se in parte sono convinto che, se il cervello mi costringe ad una azione piuttosto che ad un’altra, avrà pure i suoi buoni motivi - un cd, da poco uscito per Digitalis, che coinvolge due miei amici in collaborazione con una figura storica della sperimentazione italiana. della sperimentazione italiana, in realtà, fuorvia abbastanza completamente, ma comunque l’entry di wikipedia su Maurizio Bianchi potrebbe aiutare a spargere un po’ di luce a riguardo; per Hue e Fhievel, invece, meno storia e niente wikipedia. e soprattutto, basta dettagli, chissene, parliamo del disco: quarantatre minuti di background drone, farciti dalle varie signatures degli individui coinvolti. un disco moderno e formulatico, bilanciamento apparentemente procedurale di quello che già sapevamo. l’impressione che ho ricavato a tratti: i musicisti vengono avanti due per volta, ma probabilmente sbaglio. ed a tratti è proprio lo sfondo ad intrigare di più, come in un vecchio dipinto, quando vai oltre i santi e peccatori in primo piano e scopri un ufo solcare nubi in lontananza, o qualcuno in finestra con espressione ininterpretabile. ma no: mi viene in mente la carta dell’appeso. nella nuova descrizione questo disco è stato registrato in un giardino pensile, un gigantesco ziggurat erbaceo situato chissà dove e praticabile soltanto sul finire dell’estate: i tre musicisti appesi a turno al ramo più alto d’un ciliegio, con una corda attorno alla caviglia, intorno all’albero quattro speakers intenti in altrettanti flussi mono, rigurgiti perpetui di drones sfilacciati e field recordings di suolo calpestato da scarafaggi, tappeti di pads percepiti intrautero tanti anni prima; e così via, per ore e giorni e settimane e forse anche anni. al termine dei quali le parole terminano, gli attriti cessano di scintillare e sedimentano; come in Sunshine, i tre in silenzio, mesmerizzati da un mondo capovolto. e poi: anni fa annoveravo tra le mie conoscenze un tipo che, parlando di abitanti di deserti, mi disse che se togli il sangue a uno scorpione e lo rimpiazzi con acqua e sale lo scorpione continua a vivere, senza batter ciglio. curioso come dopo anni, tra tante cose perse o trattenute male, parlando di deserto mi torni in mente proprio questo. Andrea Ferraris, Chain DLK Maurizio Bianchi has probably been the “hyperactive child” of the evergreen Dead Kennedys’ anthem when he was a little kid, but Hue was probably following next considering the amount of releases they’re putting out recently, by the way scout’s honor so far the quality is still considerably high: they’re probably in the midst of their golden age. To create Erimos they’ve teamed up with electronic musician Fhievel and did another interesting work. This’ the sister album of Nefelodhis by MB and Hue with Sparkle in Grey (his post-rock indie-tronic combo), both the releases are quite ethereal and soft even if that has to be meant in an abstract way, this one as you may have guessed is more experimental oriented and way more cerebral. I think by some means you can distinguish the three different personalities of the team-players if you’ve heard some of their solo materials, but I’m not completely sure about what I’m writing since the blend is well assorted and they’ve probably took the unsaid mutual decision to act in symbiosis. Drones, high frequencies, concrete sounds, field recording, few instruments to throw you in a dreamlike state across a deserted area (that’s the concept of the release), consequently take for granted you’ve desolated moments, evocative melodies, melancholic atmospheres as a concept like that requires. Anyhow, thought being melancholic and evocative it’s not sad, depressed and above all far from dark ambient releases, it’s soft and it’s really close to some great documentary soundtracks you may have heard. I’m sure if you take Bertolucci’s “The sheltering sky” and you play this one in place of the original soundtrack you’ll probably think they meant it as a re-sonorization. http://www.chaindlk.com/reviews/?id=4138 классный блог, Hearthink “Erimos” от итальянского трио из Maurizio Bianchi, Matteo Uggeri и Luca Bergero - вторая часть квадрологии “Between the Elements”, посвященной природным явлениям, принцип отбора которых понятен только на интуитивном уровне: облачность, пустыня, дым, утренний мороз. Чувственные, созерцательные вещи, из которых одной из самых впечатляющих является “еrimos”, то есть “пустыня” с греческого. Её атмосферу исполнители показали достаточно легким, даже умиротворяющим, дроном, насыщенным эффектами и field recordings от Luca Bergero (Fhievel) и Matteo Uggeri (Hue). На протяжении 43 минут звуки постоянно теряются в шуме, а мелодии пианино и скрипки, как миражи, то возникают, то исчезают, то модифицируются во что-то полностью абстрактное. Такое представление пустыни кажется довольно необычным, особенно на фоне традиционных ассоциаций с восточными напевами, мелодиями одиночества и прочим стандартным антуражем подобных ландшафтов. Но излюбленные итальянцами дроны продолжают открывать новые видения на классические тематики. Думаю, следующие “Kapnos” (дым) и “Pagetos” (утренний мороз) будут не сильно разнообразнее. Тем не менее, Erimos - очень даже удачный альбом. Nicolas Campagnari, SentireAscoltare Devo dire che ho sempre apprezzato i progetti - sia nella musica che nel cinema - che si proiettavano oltre al singolo disco o film, vuoi perché rappresentano una sorta di guanto di sfida all’indeterminatezza del futuro, o vuoi perché semplicemente si presentano talmente di rado che quando accadono si può quasi parlare di evento. È probabile che i due dischi in questione non dicano niente di particolarmente nuovo nel genere drones&improv ma risultano ugualmente incisivi e affascinanti. Sono convinto che non deluderanno né i fans di Maurizio Bianchi né quelli di Matteo Uggeri, ammesso che non coincidano. (7.0/10) http://www.sentireascoltare.com/Boomkat - ALBUM OF THE WEEK - 8 Jan 2008 An underground icon in the electronic music world, Maurizio Bianchi is probably most widely renowned for his Symphony For A Genocide (reissued not too long ago on Prurient's Hospital Productions). Erimos is a collaborative venture between Bianchi and likeminded electronic artists Matteo Uggeri and Luca Bergero and occupies an incredibly dense forty-three minute duration filled with subtle drone, luscious environmental recordings and manipulated instrumental sources. While these are standard issue tools for any self-respecting electroacoustic artist, Bianchi and his cohorts somehow go beyond any notion of this being a mere academic exercise. Instead, Erimos (the Greek word for desert, no less) offers a blankly drifting, panoramic sound sculpture that shifts and evolves at a meticulously slow pace. Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly The Digitalis Recordings catalogue is quickly expanding barrel of anything non mainstream, but these three releases also proof the big variety in sounds offered. Just like the other M & M (Muslimgauze and Merzbow) Maurizio Bianchi has a wealth of releases, which seems to be vastly growing in more recent times. Maybe I wondered before how much of it is his work, but here I do it again. The cover says 'inspiration and concept by MB', but 'mixed and mastered by Hue', whereas the music is created by Bianchi, Hue (Matteo Uggeri) and Fhievel (Luca Bergero), the latter known as Sparkle in Grey [NOTE by Hue: this is wrong!]. So in what way is this a MB album or, say a Hue album? Or is the presence of the name MB a mere marketing trick. Let's say that it's the work of three persons (and two further guest players on guitar and piano [NOTE by Hue: there is no piano!]). The concept is about the emptiness of deserts and solitude of hermits, in Greek called 'Erimos'. In a single forty-one minute piece this desert is depicted through calm and meditative music, but it's not a single ambient drone. This trio moves through various stages of which the first two are drone like, time stretched pieces and synthesizers (at five minutes almost techno like), but as the work evolves and extra piano and guitar are moved into this electronic landscape things step out of the ordinary drone/synthesizer music, and perhaps becomes a bit kitschy, but throughout it's a fine work, and not as empty as desert is (well, or perhaps as we think it is). http://www.vitalweekly.net/605.html Magnus, Creative Eclipse Maurizio Bianchi hat vor fast 30 Jahren angefangen, Musik zu machen und seit den frühen 1980er Jahren konzentriert er sich dabei auf die Verwendung von elektronischem Equipement. "Erimos" ist eine Klang- und Geräuschmanipulationsorgie, die sich gewaschen hat. Über 40 Minuten in der Länge werden hier Töne manipuliert und umstrukturiert und dabei entstehen durchaus eigenwillige aber auch sphärisch weit tragende Dronen. Die Schönheit von "Erimos" liegt im Organischen und Warmen dieses langen Stückes, das doch immer wieder einer Entdeckungs- und Forschungsreise durch dichte Klangwelten gleicht. Immer wieder bilden sich neue Klangkreise, einer webt um den anderen und wogt auf und ab. Geräusche, wie das Nahen eines Insektenschwarms, der Meterhoch und ungesehen über einem Sumpfgebiet an einem schwülen Sommertag steht und surrt. Dumpfes Wabern einer Maschine. Alles das vereint "Erimos" auf ganz natürliche Weise. Wenn man sich die Zeit nimmt und "Erimos" aufmerksam erkundet, zeigt sich die wahre Grösse des Albums. Rating: 7/10 http://www.creative-eclipse.com/file/reviews_0507.htm |
