TRACKS CD

1. Silent Breath in the Reddish Darkness, Fear,
2. One Step away from the Surface Sounds, Drops in the Invisible Tickle,
3. Pebbles Clink, Fluffy Echoes Make the Air Colder.
4. Limpid Lights Dig Words in the Rocks,
5. Emotions and Thoughts Climb over Years and Years, Always the Same,
6. Tiny fishes Touch the Water in Frozen Bubbles.
7. That River Moves but I Can't Even Imagine It... How Cold Can It Be?
8. Slowness or Speed? We're All Falling Into It, Just Like a Game.
9. Subterranean Waterfall, Salmon Uphill, Colourful Algae,
10. Drawings in the Water Created by Reddish Pebbles,
11. The Slowest Stream, The Cave Fish, Towards an Emerald Lake,
12. Embraced by the Afternoon Light Reflecting the Enchantment.
13. And Here Lies the Source of it All.

TRACKS DIGITAL EP "A Waterfall of Snakes"

1. In a Summer Day End
2. The Waves Went through Frozen Bubbles
3. To Sing a Song for a Snake
4. For the Waters Underneath Milan

 

DESCRIPTION

A diary, not a press sheet

"Tales from an Underground River" is a record that has transformed many times before it was ready to be released in Fall 2022. Here is its diary.

2019 - Winter

Enrico Coniglio gave birth to it, musically speaking, in 2019 when he recorded two long and multi-layered sets of improvisation with piano, guitar and synths.

This material was, as is true with any other OttS record, sent to Matteo Uggeri. He added and removed sounds, arranged tracks with a few beats and a wide variety of instruments (violin, drums, trumpet, cello…) played by his long time collaborators. 

2020 - Winter

The tracks were then dismantled into shorter bits and re-assembled, while a concept started to take form from amongst the sounds. The floating and fluid but mysterious nature of the tracks conceived in 2020 the "underground river" idea, which afterwards became a true driving force for the further steps of the record. 

2021 - Spring

The titles were then created in 2021 by Matteo's daughter, Olivia (7 years old at the time), in a brainstorming session with her sister Nora (4 years old) and their mother, Gaia, in an attempt of creating a sort of 'full poem' made of the titles of the 12 songs, which coalesced into the “tales” told by the waters.

2022 - Summer

The thirteenth one (the closing track) was created in 2022, a long time after the rest of the tracks, when Saverio Rosi, a Netherlands-based Italian musician, officially joined the OttS band, now making it a trio.

Such song includes the vocals of Roberta Casini, mother of Uggeri, singing a lullaby. Indeed, the whole record hides, in its field recordings, the voices of her nephews (the two above mentioned little girls).

The artwork is a painting made in (circa) 1985 by - again - Roberta. Her name might not be well known, but she was an inbetweener animator of cartoons in the '70s and '80s, including "La Linea" ("The Line") by Osvaldo Cavandoli and "Tofffsy" by Pierluigi de Mas.

2022 - Fall

A few days before the publication of this record, Roberta - who bravely struggled her disease for twenty years, died leaving that kind of emptiness that no musical release can ever fulfill. Nevertheless, the band and the labels are proud to carry on her artistic legacy making "Tales from an Underground River" finally public.

Yes, this description may sound weird, convoluted and depressive, but that's the story of this record, whose musical nature develops into a continuous stream of sound, from ambient to progressive, to post rock, embracing jazz and an overall new-wave melancholic attitude.
Involuntary, the main references that the band itself quotes are the 4AD records of the eighties (This Mortal Coil in particular) and the quietest ECM releases.

A special edition, only 30 copies, is sold along with a puzzle with an image of the painting. A special EP by OttS as a full trio (Coniglio/Uggeri/Rosi) called "A Waterfall of Snakes" is available, but only for those able enough to fully complete it and send the photo to the band.

2022

VIDEO

Reviews and radio: Vital Weekly, Aural Aggravation...

"Jazz-like at times, post-rock at other times, even the improvisational aspect is never far away, makes this not your typical ambient record, which is something I enjoyed" - VITAL WEEKLY (Frans De Waard) 

"Una narrazione ipertestuale ideata come ammaliante percorso sensoriale in cui cadere e rimanere impigliati come tante Alice nel paese delle meraviglie." - TRISTE SUNSET (Peppe Trotta)

Ltd. Numbered Puzzled Box Edition 30 copies 6 panels digipack CD
+ 28,5 x 40,5 cm Puzzle with the whole painting by Roberta Casini
+ EP "A Waterfall of Snakes" with four unreleased tracks
+ 2 stickers

Ltd. Standard Edition 270 copies 6 panels digipack CD, enveloped into a glossy semi-transparent paper wrap