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Autumn is Coming, We're All in Slowmotion |
Andrea Ferraris & Matteo Uggeri: Autumn is Coming, We're all in Slowmotion
REVIEWS
John McCaffery, Fluid RadioExperimental music, by its very nature, is often unconcerned with melody; other qualities of sound and music are explored, taken apart and reconstructed with the intent of presenting the listener with surprising new ways to engage with the listening experience. Many commendable aural experiences have been produced by mere tweaking of single variables within sound, for example much of the ambient canon relies on a relatively minimal bag of tricks. It is, however, clear from the outset that “Autumn is Coming...” is a very different beast indeed. D di Repubblica, Giacomo Spazio Mojetta TRIP MUSIC 1. Console: Herself (Self / Disko B) The Milkman, The Milk Factory This album is the fruit of the meeting of two artists with substantial pedigrees in experimental music. Andrea Ferraris learnt his trade in various hardcore outfits during the nineties before moving towards more experimental forms of electronic and electro-acoustic music, while Matteo Uggeri has been active with various collaborative projects ranging from noise and post industrial to field recordings-infused melodic electronica since the mid nineties. The pair met after working on a series of collaborative projects led by Maurizio Bianchi and Andrea Marutti, and decided to work on a collaborative project of their own. The pair are here joined by Japanese musician Mujika Easel, who provides occasional piano and vocals, and Italian sound artist Andrea Serrapiglio, who plays cello, and with whom Ferraris has previously collaborated as part of experimental quartet Airchamber 3. The album combines field recordings, acoustic instrumentation in both raw and processed forms, and electronics into a series of luxurious sonic vignettes where voices, shimmering melodic touches and environmental noises fill the space in all sorts of combinations. While the album features eight distinct pieces, Autumn really works over its whole length, the various compositions primarily serving its overall narrative. The track titles are resolutely kept as descriptive of the field recordings used as possible, or so one is led to think at least, in a move echoing the clinical denominations of early musique concrète works, yet they also contribute to setting the stage for each one of the pieces and giving them a context within the complete work. On Whispers, Scream And Steps In A Library, Disables Playing With Bagatelle for instance, it is exactly what serves as backdrop to a delicate acoustic guitar motif, the music remaining for the most part entirely incidental. This is true of the entire record, to the point where, when Easel adds wordless vocals to a piece, as is the case on Steps On Leaves, Kids On Skateboard, Steps In The Mud, Windscreen-wiper, A Walk Through The Snow or Friend Sleeping, People Swimming In The Pool, Doors, Workout And Water Bottles, they appear more to be part of the layer of environmental noises rather than of the music itself. It is as if Ferraris and Uggeri had taken entire film sequences, stripping them of all visual element to only retain their auditive aspect. Unlike the majority of works using field recordings, doing so primarily as an additive to the music, what Ferraris and Uggeri do is to actively create snapshots of life from fragments of found sounds, applying the same compositional principles to these as others do with notes and instruments. This results in extremely detailed sceneries, crafted with extreme care to mimic real life, yet, as tracks slip into others, with no clear breaks in between, but with definite context changes as the narrative progresses, the composed aesthetic of the whole record becomes apparent for brief moments. In just under an hour, Andrea Ferraris and Matteo Uggeri, with a discreet helping hand from their two contributors, create a work of epic cinematic proportions, but this is very much epic at miniature level, their wonderful evocative scenes painstakingly recreating life as it probably never quite was. Autumn resembles tilt-shift photography in the way that, through careful placement and context, it makes reality looks like a model of itself. This first collaboration between the two artists is already one of Hibernate’s most fascinating releases to date, and as it is published in a very limited CD run, it should be snapped up before it is sold out.
---------------> [...] Autumn Is Coming. We’re All in Slow Motion comunica malinconia in ogni passaggio [...]
Jerome Olivier, Autres directions Riche d’évocations réalistes et de pensées flâneuses, le bien nommé Autumn Is Coming, We’re All In Slow Motion n’est autre que le fruit de la collaboration patiente et inspirée de quatre musiciens au chevet du temps. Les noms et les parcours d’Andrea Ferraris, Matteo Uggeri, Mujika Easel et Andrea Serrapiglio ne nous diront rien de plus passionnant que ce que la musique tente de capturer : le blues automnal, l’esprit qui s’abandonne au ralenti, au plus petit détail. On peut légitimement parler de feuilles tapies sous les bois, d’hibernation, de repli sur soi, de moments passés à regarder les trains, la foule et le gris du ciel. Chaque composition est une page cornée qui nous ramène irrémédiablement à notre propre monde intérieur. Question de proximité, d’écoute, de sensibilité : ce disque ne se construit qu’à partir d’une multitude d’instruments acoustiques (guitares, piano, violoncelle…) et de field recordings. Si la formule n’est pas nouvelle, ces textures électro-acoustiques prennent rapidement la forme d’un souvenir, d’un mot, d’une action. Scènes de la vie quotidienne, fragments d’éternité, toutes les sources sonores exploitées s’évanouissent en une impression générale, mélancolique, familière, impalpable : « la vie est faite de moments qui ne se joignent pas », comme le chantait autrefois Jean Bart. Unknown, Music is Dying Now From the ever so vibrant music scene of Italy (or so it seems from the outside) two musicians with a background in experimental (and) ambient music, Andrea Ferraris and Matteo Uggeri, who receive help from Mujika Easel and Andrea Serrapiglio. The cover lists extensively the various sound sources. Lots of field recordings and electronics (Uggeri), but what can be noticed here is that the acoustic instruments, mainly the guitar (played by Ferraris) but also cello (Serrapiglio) and piano (Easel) play an important, if not crucial role. Like the title suggests, the music seems to be in slow motion. To me the whole thing sounds played like a few nice afternoons of improvisation. ‘Let’s sit together and play a few sounds from the computer and add some instruments’. In the subsequent mix this intimacy is saved, which is a great thing, I’d say. A not too difficult album with elegant ambient pieces, lots of acoustic instruments and an overall laidback atmosphere. Excellent dream music with a nice edge.Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes Mixing (mainly) local field recordings and lots of different instruments – with the help of Japanese singer and pianist Mujika Easel and cellist Andrea Serrapiglio – Ferraris and Uggeri gave birth to a record that is not afraid to expose a number of kindhearted sides, expressed through music that privileges ashen shades, foggy landscapes and soothing melody. We can’t say of having not met comparable materials before – indeed we have heard many – but in this case the cohesion between the parts makes sure that the recipe is quite tasty, with a few flashes of genuine aural gratification. Recognizable echoes of neighboring existences often represent a quick way out for countless sound constructors to avoid a deeper type of research; here, the truthfulness at the basis of the project is felt straight away, even the most obvious traces giving a hint of those everyday presences which people tend to disregard yet constitute the basic soundtrack of a normal being. It remains to be seen if one really appreciates that kind of life, however the acoustic product resulting from this compendium of urban and rural poetry is legitimate. Pascal Savy, Static Sound Autumn is Coming, We’re All in Slow Motion is a collaborative work by Andrea Ferraris and Matteo Uggeri who met through various experimental projects shared with Maurizio Bianchi and Andrea Marutti. They join forces here with Japanese musician Mujika Easel on piano and vocal duties and Andrea Serrapiglio who plays cello and also mastered this album. Ferraris is credited with instruments like acoustic and electric guitar, bass, percussions, harmonium, glockenspiel and zither and he contributed some vocals. Uggeri is in charge of most things electronic and is also responsible for an astonishing collection of field recordings taken from all around Italy. Autumn is Coming, We’re All in Slow Motion is made of eight tracks, where slightly processed field recordings and the aforementioned instruments come and go in a very loose manner, devoid of apparent shape or structure. What is unusual at first is the frontal presence of those recordings, not supporting the music beneath the surface, as in most recent ambient records, but really suggesting everyday life and conjuring up strong cinematic snapshots. Nothing extraordinary, only the simplicity and beauty of people doing normal things. The track-listing comes here to reinforce those aural cues, as each track-title is made of the different recordings used, which can be handy or not, offering different levels of listening. On the surface, the music played alongside those recordings could be seen as just a soundtrack to life, as seen through a magnifying glass. In Whispers, Screams and Steps in a Library, Disables Playing with Bagatelle, techniques of close-miking and compression give an intimate experience with the sound of people whispering, children screams or voices and passers-by, where the feeling generated by such assemblage is echoed by the beautiful guitars played throughout the track, suggesting memories of long-gone childhood. Over nearly an hour, this album is more a succession of scenes than tracks – each of them telling a story, as if the surface of life was beautifully magnified. The music played alongside field recordings seems quite disjointed and un-structured at times but is yet all the more emotionally charged, mirroring the ephemerality of moments spent together. Ferraris and Uggeri have created with Autumn is Coming, We’re All in Slow Motion a rare work of music, very unique and sounding like nothing else, best appreciated in the early hours, when one takes the time to turn inwards and let memories of past happiness to resurface, giving them space to illuminate the present. Brendan Kraft, The Silent Ballet There are so many moments in life when there would be nothing better than to retreat into some pleasant space devoid of harm and hatred. Our memories would then exist in an atemporal space, idyllic and lustrous, silently moving through images and sound. In the far reaches of the mind, there is no bitterness. The subconscious wants what we so often miss out on in the physical world: peace. For Andrea Ferraris & Matteo Uggeri, this world can be recreated through the digital manipulation of sparse landscapes, composed of minimalist instruments and a vast array of field recordings. Autumn is Coming, We’re All in Slow Motion is a seemingly random composition of the sounds that most preciously capture the sentiment of living; it's an audio memory book of our best collective moments. The titles are a simple description of the sounds found within. Many found sound artists embed their recordings in sparse instrumentation, but Ferraris and Uggeri create remarkably descriptive scenery using the sounds themselves. On “whispers, screams and steps in a library, disables playing with bagatelle”, a simple acoustic guitar accompaniment lazily guides the listener through the sound collage. The clear and distinct sounds puncture their surroundings in the same way that mundane bits of our external environment catch our attention. The everyday din of collected arbitrary noises is the soundtrack of life, presented here as they would if the senses were heightened the way our hippocampus etches them in memory. Even the more rhythmic tracks are only so because of their assemblers’ great gift for composition. The light drumbeat and accordion on “creek of a church door, wedding celebration” are simply props of the real world scenario from which they’ve been audibly lifted. On this track, we hear not the expected church organs and other vestigial rites, but the pronounced strike of feet on wood and the hushed whispers of those nearby. This compositional choice reveals one of the album's greatest strengths: Ferraris & Uggeri highlight the way in which seemingly insignificant portions of our lives are the ones we remember most clearly. The human mind remembers details of a cherished event that seem unimportant in the retelling: ‘the first time she kissed him the bed had been unmade with the blankets pushed toward the rear left of the bed, and the sketches on her architecture desk were strewn about haphazardly.’ We live in these minor details, and we play them back with a hushed reverence; the mind’s remembrance is more picturesque than the actual event because we’ll never be able to return to that moment. We spend so much time sharing our stories with each other, noting only their glamorous peaks and climaxes and eschewing the sanctity of the slow seconds in which we pretend nothing happens. The artists remind us on tracks like “zapping TV at home, old clock charging and then walking on the wooden floor in a castle” that the cascade of infinitesimal moments that compose our existence are the ones that we secretly cherish the most. Why is it that when we witness a very eloquent toast at an important event, the instant we best remember is the collected squawking of chairs that proceeds it? The truth is that the minutiae of our lives provide us with the most comfort. Our time on Earth is an unnoticed symphony of sounds and visuals that go largely unnoticed, save by the subconscious, and by Andrea Ferraris & Matteo Uggeri. Ant, Norman Records Blimey, these chaps have a veritable arsenal of instruments and sound sources on here ranging from Field Recordings, electronics, acoustic guitars, cello, snare, harmonium, piano, vocals, bass and electric guitar, zither and so on. What they have created feels both earthy and organic but simultaneously otherworldly. The overall feel is pretty melancholic and emotional. I particularly like the field recordings and stranger sounds which act as an anchor, almost placing the listener within a specific space making the emotional experience more real. Lovely stuff as usual from Hibernate.
---------------> [...] perfetto, comunque, per qualche colonna sonora che deve molto rappresentare [...] Alan Williams, Future Sequence Autumn Is Coming, We're All In Slow Motion is anchored by field recordings taken throughout Italy, Tokyo and central Europe. The album is skilfully mixed, the captured audio blending with melodic clean guitar picking, in turn complemented by shimmering lead on the opening moments. Indeed, once the listener has had a moment to adjust to the surprisingly prominent field recordings, they cease to be an addition and are instead another instrument, employed as tastefully and artfully as every other sound present. As the album progresses, the pieces feel loose and without structure, almost like a jam session, albeit with exceptionally talented musicians. The field recordings place in the listeners imagination an intangible taste of Milano cafe's and Cathedrals, like a half-remembered childhood memory. The tracks are mostly around six minutes but keeping track of which piece is playing soon becomes impossible and the listener is lost in the melancholic reverie. There is an incredible depth to each piece and the mind boggles at how effortlessly each sound is woven. At just under four minutes, the shortest number is perhaps the most beautiful. Windscreen-Wiper, A Walk Through The Snow (each piece has a similarly descriptive title) opens with the aforementioned recorded wiper sounds and is joined by minimalist piano refrains. The piece then adds evocative strings and vocals which are faltering and fragile yet all the more beautiful for it. At times the listener may recall neo-classical ensemble Rachel's more abstract offerings, especially on their album Systems/Layers and this album is no less unique, no less absorbing. A work of great depth and scope, We're All In Slow Motion arguably manages to succeed in the the artists desire to create 'the perfect blend of experimental music and melody'. Released October (TBA) on Hibernate Recordings in a run of 200 digipak CD's and digital download. http://www.futuresequence.com/ Adriano E., Collectables Show an ambient/field recording CD to your rock/pop/metal friend, and be ready for the usual “is this music?/this is all alike man” mundane joke. On the recent years, my likings are drifting a lot into this ambient/dark ambient/field recordings tag, and as everything minimal and without rich melodies, it takes time to understand and dissect. It’s easy to understand that this type of music needs the listeners imagination, this music needs crafted imagery and sensibility to be fully empowered and gather peoples attention. People see it on cinema and cry, give them just the audio and few people listen to it with the same attention. Emiliano Grigis, Sodapop Spesso non si riesce a seguire il ritmo delle uscite di molti musicisti elettronici/ambientali/sperimentali, ma tra i dischi usciti quest'anno di Andrea Ferraris (sì, proprio lui, il prode membro di Sodapop) e di Matteo Uggeri (già ascoltato, intervistato e recensito da queste parti con molto piacere) non potevo lasciarmi sfuggire questa collaborazione in cui, come per fortuna qualche volta accade, il risultato finale è più del semplice amalgama delle potenzialità dei singoli musicisti. Philippe Blache, Progarchives In Matteo Uggeri's creative musical production, this new collaborative album can be considered as the intimate companion of Un'estate senza piogga. In this new effort, Matteo is seconded by musicians and friends such as the guitarist Andrea Ferraris, the cello player Andrea Serrapiglio and Mujika Esel on vocals and piano. The sound geologies reveal an unique medley of cinematic post-rockin ambiences and languorous acoustic dreamlike atmospheres; punctuated by a vast array of concrete microsounds. The eco-acoustic-organic attributes of Uggeri's music are put a step further, delivering sensuous soundscapes. The guitars of Andrea Ferraris are constantly evanescent, fragile and shimmering. The rumbling cello and the abstract piano lines give to the ensemble a touching melancholic mood. All musical ingredients and sound orchestration work like a chamber ensemble. Some compositions achieve a rare level of emotional intensity (Steps on Leaves...) and some distinctive pop-ish melodies (Friend Sleeping... ). A very cohesive album with lof of ideas and introspect moments. More accessible and less experimental than older works, this one can be appreciated by a larger audience. Listen to Autumn Is Coming and you wil discover a symbiotic, expanded, breathy musical experience. Ned Netherwood, Wasisdas [...] This album is as beautiful as the hot beams of sunlight strikining rusting piles of golden leaves on the last nice day of the year. [...] E., Das Klienikum huih, auf hibernate records ließ sich dieser tage ein feiner release finden, dessen erscheinung auf den 18. oktober datiert ist. wer nun von 'neu' redet, kennt das musikgeschäft nicht. wer aber glauben mag, dass dieses album zeitlos ist, der darf folgen und weiterlesen. denn "autumn is coming, we're all in slow motion" überschreitet die grenzen, sowohl die des individuellen geschmacks, als auch jene von moden. es ist ein album, dem man folgen muss, weil es sich als biologisches etwas geriert, dass sich quasi dem humanen wesen als ein gleichgesinntes, vielmehr als ebenbürtiger partner anbietet. es ist das weiche daunen zum abend wie die wärmenden strahlen am morgen, das laue des badewannenwassers, die zigarette nach dem sex. es ist alles und ein bißchen mehr. die flauschigen gitarrenströme werden gereicht zu munter machenden fieldrecordings, soundscapes, die so wunderbar vertraut klingen, wie die stimme der mutter, während wir noch in ihrem leib verhangen sind. alltagsszenerien gekoppelt an sphärische lautbarkeiten, perkussives allerlei und sirenenhaften gesang. jegliche kitschankopplung geht hier verloren an einer idee der ganzheitlichkeit, wie sie in musik, die sich aus einfachen tönen, ganz dem gesetz der simplizität folgend, zusammensetzt, so selten zu finden ist. jede note hat einen wert, ist komplex und spiegelt das ganze in aller einfachheit wieder. vögelgezwitscher und wasserrauschen, unterhaltungen, bewegungen, das abtropfen am klavier. mir sind einige solcher kreationen bekannt, aber selten ist mir etwas derart perfektes untergekommen. kopfkino findet eine auferstehung. die verantwortlichen hierfür sind andrea ferraris und mattei uggeri, die zwar bereits in kollaborationen miteinander zu tun hatten, aber noch nie in dieser engen form. die gemeinsame suche "[...] for the most balanced blend of experimental music and melody." kulminierte denn auch in diesem album. unterstützung erhielten die beiden durch den japaner mujika easel (eisi, mono, taylor deupree) sowie andrea serrapiglio (carla bozulich´s evangelista, barbara de dominicis). die feldaufnahmen stammen übrigens aus italien und anderen ort in mitteleuropa. die musik selber schließlich wurde in mailand, alessandria und tokio aufgenommen. ich bin sehr gespannt, wie es Euch gefällt.
From the ever so vibrant music scene of Italy (or
so it seems from the outside) two musicians with a background in experimental (and) ambient music, Andrea Ferraris and Matteo Uggeri, who receive help from Mujika Easel and Andrea Serrapiglio (I must admit to have never heard of them). The cover lists extensively the various sound sources. Lots of field recordings and electronics (Uggeri), but what can be noticed here is that the acoustic instruments, mainly the guitar (played by Ferraris) but also cello (Serrapiglio) and piano (Easel) play an important, if not crucial role. Like the title suggests, the music seems to be in slow motion. To me the whole thing sounds played like a few nice afternoons of improvisation. 'Let's sit together and play a few sounds from the computer and add some instruments'. In the subsequent mix this intimacy is saved, which is a great thing, I'd say. A not too difficult album with elegant ambient pieces, lots of acoustic instruments and an overall laidback atmosphere. Excellent dream music with a nice edge. RADIO: Glassshrimp Radio Sherwood ivoox |
Roberto Mandolini
Stefano Isidoro Bianchi
