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viewing 1 To 21 of 21 items
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"Storia Notturna is a collection of music written, produced and recorded mainly in September 2021, but its origins go back in time. For one of the many extra-departmental courses that my study plan in Philosophy allowed, I chose Social History and found myself studying the seminal study by Carlo Ginzburg 'I Benandanti: Stregoneria e culti agrari tra Cinquecento e Seicento' (Einaudi, 1966). It was a revelation. Ginzburg started from the analysis of a curious and widely documented Friulian fertility cult to show, on the one hand, how the Catholic inquisition overturned the perspective of the suspects, turning them from enemies of the witches for the defense of the crops into worshippers of the devil and, on the on the other hand, how some of the distinctive aspects of this cult had very ancient origins and, above all, traits common to traditions traceable in an enormous variety of times and places all over the world. In the following years, for pure personal pleasure, I continued to deepen my studies on these topics, and a couple of years ago my bookseller friend (and author of a beautiful book published by Utet) Giovanni Spadaccini got me a copy of the first edition of Storia Notturna, an essay from 1989 in which Carlo Ginzburg deepened and expanded the investigation on the themes already treated in 'I Benandanti.' By the end of the book, something clicked in my head. Suddenly some of the many musical tracks that I continuously produce in my studio began to suggest a path that I hadn't guessed before. I felt the urgency to immediately write and record other songs that would complete the picture that had by now outlined. In a few weeks I had an album, 'a tale of Italian psychomagic in music,' as a friend defined it. I'd like to thank Giovanni Spadaccini not only for providing the book, but also for having been the very first listener and critic of my music, immediately followed by my bandmate and lifelong musical companion Nicola Caleffi. Their encouragement convinced me to overcome my chronic indecision, my well-founded self-criticism and to decide to publish this material. Pasquale Lomolino was equally encouraging and happy to release the album through his Backwards label." -Luca Giovanadri
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A fortunate and successful meeting "between the romantic and the analytical, the sentimental and the pragmatic." This double soul lives inside the ambient-electronics contained in Rote Um, the debut-album by the artistic partnership between TeZ (Maurizio Martinucci, member of Clock DVA since 2010) and Saverio Rosi (aka Leastupperbound and member of the band Open to the Sea with Enrico Coniglio and Matteo UIggeri). Both Italian composers based in Amsterdam, TeZ and Rosi top a ten-year friendship by exchanging their musical skin to generate eight gems of great intensity, divided between icy dronic expanses and warm electroacoustic embraces. The main feature of Rote Um is its complementarity: Rosi's analog experiments, imbued with low-fi and field-recording, are nestled in the endless digital landscapes, with cold hues and full of hypnagogic sensations, painted by TeZ. All this gives birth to a synesthetic and touching experience, halfway between the moody ambient by Labradford and the nocturnal abstractionism by Mirt. All tracks on Rote Um were recorded and mixed in 2022 at Optobunker Studio in Amsterdam, and wizardly mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.
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First collaboration between Massimo Amato (also known for his acclaimed La Centrale Elettrica (2016) album), and Fabio Orsi, born from a mutual esteem that later became a solid friendship. The collaboration was born from an exchange of material, which immediately creates a synergy and an understanding between them. The six tracks of Inerte draw inspiration from the composition of noble gases, creating the perfect synthesis between the sidereal and electronic sounds created by Fabio Orsi and the warm improvisations of Massimo Amato. Ambient textures with punctual rhythms, abstract, and melodic electronic that create dreamy atmospheres for a journey that you might wish would never end... Fabio Orsi and Massimo Amato play: synths, sequencers, effects. Artwork: Nicola Giunta. Edition of 300.
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Flag of Breeze marks a new adventurous collaboration between Nicola Giunta/Lay Llamas and Gioele Valenti/JuJu, coming seven years after Lay Llamas' acclaimed album Ostro, released in 2014 by London-based label Rocket Recordings. This mini-LP is like a sort of radio tuning listening session among FM stations and mysterious shortwaves transmissions. The tracks come out like from a hazy ethereal dimension, melting with alien lo-fi sounds from the unknown. Luminous and peaceful psych pop melodies meet exotic and ritual percussions, recalling a strange surfer's tribe on the beach around a campfire. A cosmic kraut sonic trip through the solar system to reach a Verne-like underwater jungle. Here it talks about universal flags made of breeze, nocturnal burnings, mixtures, and potions for unknown fever, ancient sleeping plants. The album's artwork is an esoteric map of symbols and forms, the visual key of this sonic journey. Silkscreened cover with two inserts; single-sided LP; edition of 225.
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PIC. DISC
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Reissue of the one-sided vinyl picture disc, originally available with the Fabio Orsi box set with book of the same name. The vinyl has an exclusive long track that is a sort of "summa" of Fabio Orsi's musical world: like his early releases, Il Ricordo Improvviso Dell'Assoluto Stupore is deep drone ambient track, with distant guitars and a nostalgic touch. Hypnotic and melodic at the same time... One-sided picture disc including a small insert; edition of 200.
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Backwards announce a new Fabio Orsi and Alessandra Guttagliere multimedia release: a book with an audio CD. The primary inspiration for this new four-handed work between Fabio Orsi and Alessandra Guttagliere are colors. The title (Arcoiris) in fact means "rainbow". For the realization of this work, there was a constant dialogue between Alessandra and Fabio; while Alessandra proposed a color simply by naming it, Fabio created the sound compositions, vice versa Alessandra listening to the sound compositions let herself be inspired to create the drawings. The pictorial work is a light work, using natural colors sometimes made by the artist starting from flowers or plants. It is an organic work, in progress and in movement. Fabio's tracks are maybe his most "pop-oriented" to date, but made with the usual class by our artist. Comes with an A5 format deluxe booklet with drawings by Alessandra Guttagliere, printed on sturdy cardboard. Edition of 200.
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Backwards presents the new Fabio Orsi studio album. Recorded in the lockdown period, for this release Fabio plays two mono synths, sequencers, and effects. Similar to the latest releases, this five-track album also maintains the electronic atmospheres to which the monophonic synths give warmth to the infinite melodic sequences. Another true gem of electronic, ambient, and cosmic music from Fabio Orsi. Edition of 300.
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Work presented during the personal exhibition of Pier Alfeo (well know also for his moniker Dubit) "Incisione su Silenzio" at the gallery Doppelgaenger of Bari, Italy (February 22-May 22 2019). Works produced and composed during the studies of electronic musical composition at the "N. Piccinni" Conservatory of Bari. The compositions have been realized through algorithmic programming using the Wolfram Language of the Mathematica and CSound software. The collection Works 2016-2018 includes the first three electro-acoustic compositions created during the academic years, a period in which the algorithmic computer programming technique was learned using the Wolfram language in the domain of the Mathematica software. This technique involves the construction of sound on a mathematical-computer level taking into account the structural parameters of the sound itself, such as: attack times, duration, intensity, height, envelope and spatialization, using granulators, additive synthesis and subtractive synthesis. The system consists in the creation of data matrices which are then appropriately interpreted by the CSound software which renders them in audio format, a material that was subsequently organized and edited for composition purposes. The intent during both programming and composition was to arrive at a sound that preserved a certain warmth, a certain organicity (contrary to the coldness of the technique itself), this was possible by intercepting a series of trends and classes of numbers that exhibit a fluid behavior, reflecting the internal motions of nature. The plays and influences that led to the creation of these works are by composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Schaeffer, Luigi Nono, Bruno Maderna, Iannis Xenakis, Igor 'Fedorovic Stravinsky, Gyorgy Ligeti, R. Murray Schafer, etc. In "All That Fall" a single sample of origin was used, the recording of a crackling fireplace, while in "The Never Spoken Words" all sound generations were created by processing only recordings of voices and vocalizations. Written and composed by, performer Pier Alfeo. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Gatefold poster cover (oversized: 60x90) para-graphic score of the composition "All That Fall", including an insert. White vinyl; edition of 300.
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"Those who meditate in silence": it is one of the meanings of the Sanskrit word Muni, a new musical project by Nicola Caleffi, multi-instrumentalist and founder of the Italian band Julie's Haircut. The debut album Soma (the sacred drink of the Vedic cult) was born from a day of studio improvisation which also involved Laura Storchi, a Julie's Haircut founding member, Claudio Luppi, and Pierluigi Lanzillotta, the latter two engaged in various projects including the psych-rock outfit Pip Carter Lighter Maker. As invigorated by the properties of the Soma itself -- the nectar that brings health and immortality -- the four "cantors" unleash their minds to give life to an initiatory journey in deep communion with nature. From the thrilling fourth-world plots of "Drinking At The River Of Light", which hides jazz-veins inspired by the Miles Davis of "He Loved Him Madly" and "In A Silent Way", to the psychedelic drifts of "Spirit Animal", in which horn players Silvia Orlandini and Paolo Campani also participate playing their winds, Muni manage to make spaces and silences resonate, transforming music into an imaginary landscape. Among ethno-tribal textures, in which the Bruce Palmer of "The Cycle Is Complete" era resounds, mystical psychedelia and sidereal excursions, also the tracks "Presence By The Fire" and "Corona Borealis" follow one other, closing the circle of a pilgrimage that Muni travel between heaven and earth accompanied by three very dear texts, which attended during the studio sessions: the Bhagavadgītā, the zen poem "Shodoka" by Yoka Daishi and the poems by Dylan Thomas. Soma was recorded and mixed by Gabriele Riccioni and is published by Backwards. Artwork by Juan Ignacio Gimenez. Edition of 300.
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Experimentation and Italian library music are the coordinates in which Didactic Music is written, the second work of the solo project Mouse and Sequencers by Nicola Giunta (The Lay Llamas), published by Backwards. The Sicilian multi-instrumentalist makes a "catalog" of genres that range among a melancholic bucolic-folk, documentary field recordings, fleeting expeditions in space and small experiments. From the sidereal ambient music of "Ancient Chants" to the late-summer suggestions of "Unmapped Islands", passing through the abstract blues of "Giant Squids" and the analog '70s electronic perfumes in "New Socialism", Giunta gives us a precious prism with 17 faces that shines with its own light, spreading absolutely colorful emotions on the walls of your soul. There's nothing left to do but listen to it and let yourself be carried away. The original artworks are made by Nicola Giunta, in handcrafted xerography. Digipack; edition of 300.
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Backwards present the new Fabio Orsi release, Di Lumi E Chiarori. This time Fabio offered a monumental work: eight long tracks contained in a huge box set with four compact discs. Musically it stands on the new course of the artist: together with the classic ambient and drone atmospheres, the work has more dynamic parts with rhythms and pulsations, and more melodic parts. A perfect meeting between ambient music and Berlin-style electronics, between intimate and dreaming atmospheres and epic soundscapes. Immersive electronic music that will puts your mind into a wonderful trance like state of being. Comes in an elegant matte finish box, with four cardboard wallet inside and one insert; edition of 250.
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Backwards present the reissue of this amazing Vox Populi! album, La Cathedrale Morte, originally released on cassette in 1985 by Cause And Effect in the United States. Self-labeled as an ethno-industrial project, Vox Populi! is one of the most intriguing and original bands to emerge from the French underground. These recordings were made between 1980 and 1985. This amazing release presents seven tracks of analog experimental ethno industrial music. Silkscreened cover with printed inner-sleeve; edition of 400.
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Jennifer Gentle are one of the most idiosyncratic Italian bands ever. Led by singer, guitarist, and sometimes only member Marco Fasolo, they started their career in the early Noughties as slightly stoned-out-of-their-minds teens equally able to manage short psych pop explosions and 20-minute brain-melting freakouts. They quickly recorded a couple of self-released albums that raised some interest abroad and became the first Italian band to sign to American label Sub Pop, releasing two critically acclaimed albums in quick succession: 2005's Valende (an exercise in hyperactive, sparkling pop mixed with pastoral acoustic vignettes) then followed in 2007 by the much darker and convoluted The Midnight Room (described in a Mojo review as "Syd Barrett lost in a 20's Berlin cabaret"). After 2008, Marco Fasolo preferred to concentrate on production and soundtrack work. He came back in 2013 with the Universal Daughters' album Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?, a beautifully heart-breaking charity project involving collaborations with the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Alan Vega, Gavin Friday, Chris Robinson, Ed Harcourt, and many more. In 2018, together with Liam Watson (White Stripes, Thee Headcoats, etc.), Fasolo produced (at Toe Rag Studio in London) the first album by Turkish musician Umut Adan, later released to glowing reviews by UK label Riverboat Records. Also in 2018, Fasolo arranged and produced the first album by I Hate My Village, an Italian supergroup whose psychedelic take on Afro-funk has become a hugely successful live attraction: he later joined the band as a permanent member. Now it's 2019 and Marco Fasolo and Jennifer Gentle are officially back with their new, self-titled album. Immaculately produced by Fasolo himself, it's a sprawling, full-bodied release touching all of Fasolo's musical obsessions: it effortlessly bounces from a breezy soul glam, goofy funk, intricate baroque ballads, Joe Meek-like instrumentals, and the trademark JG zippy psychedelia, without ever losing its focus on mood and detailed song construction. By far their most complete and accessible album, Jennifer Gentle is above all an immersive listening experience and new evidence of Fasolo's unique songwriting, arranging, and producing abilities: a sometimes pensive, sometimes joyful musical parade to be absorbed as a whole.
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Fun House Mirrors is the fourth album by Almagest!, the second under the Almagest! moniker being the first two releases credited to founding members Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo and Ernesto Tomasini. After four years the band comes back with a new sound far from the piano driven pieces of the previous Messier Objects (2013) and manifesting itself into five long electric richly textured and arranged, as the title suggests, conceptually and sonically distorted cinematic compositions made of the fabric of sensual and disturbing dreams and sang by the many voices of Ernesto Tomasini in a variety of European, lost and alien languages. Almagest! is: Ernesto Tomasini, Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo, Paul Beauchamp, Evor Ameisie. Fun House Mirrors has been engineered by Paul Beauchamp; produced by Palumbo and Tomasini; mastered by James Plotkin and features contributions by Canadian cello player Julia Kent, drummer Marco "Il Bue" Schiavo (from cult band Larsen), Colombian multi-instrumentalist Maria Mallol Moya, and experimental brass player Ramon Moro.
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Backwards presents a full-length album from the amazing Greek artist, Dead Gum. Meta, Dead Gum's sophomore studio album, constituted a challenge for its maker. While its predecessor Gainer (2014) hollered for awareness and singularity, this one indulges into multi-layered, ambiguous narratives tracing an impossible duality. With abiding influences that distance him from conspicuous contemporary norms, Panagiotis Spoulos creates a nocturnal, desolate sound collage, invoking a meta-purpose for a/the current status quo. The public character of the endeavor is almost jostled by the private-ness of the overall statement; the invitation thus corresponds to a peek into a baffled brain and a rove around gradual levels of muffled alarm calls and grimy smells. Meta is no post-something. Meta merely stands half foot ahead of absolute nothingness, the true end of it all. Edition of 300.
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Those Turkish improv Konstrukt boys sure love collaborating with guests, and here in Manchester's fine Islington Mill venue, they added David Mclean of Tombed Visions and Graham Massey of 808 State into their heady live brew. On this night, the extended Konstrukt got into some Miles-ish avant-grooves, to the delight of all.
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Somewhere is the third album from Silent Carnival, the sonic creature that Marco Giambrone raised since 2012. Production, recordings and mixing was managed by Giambrone himself. Recorded between January and February 2018 in the home-studio based in Cammarata (Sicily), Somewhere confirms band members and constant collaborators Alfonso De Marco, Caterina Fede, and Andrea Serrapiglio adding new musicians like Stefano De Ponti, Luca Andriolo, and Luca Serrapiglio. This is an album about visions, dreams, and premonitions with many different vibes, widening the color palette than in the past. Less drones and more acoustic instruments to dress a songwriting free from fences of music genre. A changing sound, like the "Calvary" procession that combines the Sicilian Easter's lamentations with the pagan vibes of unknown worlds. The confessions without absolution of "Innocence" and the desert in the backyard of "Somewhere" only confirm the intimate and at the same time merciless attitude of this album. Edition of 300.
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"I've known Fabio Orsi for almost fifteen years now, artistically and humanly. Since the days of Osci his first album released by Small Voices, my label at that time, up to some essential records published by A Silent Place, another label that I managed, in a period that seems almost unrepeatable. Each of his work, whether in music or photography, is always a certainty for me, but lately also a surprise; in fact Fabio Orsi has learned to surprise himself and surprise us: this new creature is different from his previous releases, but is always touched by that talent and crystalline class that distinguishes him; after all these years, I can affirm it without fear of appearing too enthusiastic or even partisan. The new work Sterminato Piano settles among the best things of Fabio Orsi, but also in some ways, among the most unexpected and original. After eight years in Berlin, his return to Puglia (south of Italy) is restoring new life and new creativity and new energy. In fact, the new album is full of energy and warmth, with patterns, sequences, and dancefloor beats of our dreams." --LP Cover artwork by Italian illustrator Mastereaster. Edition of 300.
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Backwards present the first Massimo Magrini solo work, Vrachnas. Massimo Magrini is well known for his main project Bad Sector. Hypnagogic hallucinations: vivid perceptual experiences that typically occur at sleep onset. Hypnopompic hallucinations are similar experiences but occurring at awakening. Sleep paralysis: a state when, during awakening or falling asleep, a person is aware but unable to move or speak. It may include hypnagogic hallucinations, such as shadowy figures entering the room while the subject is paralyzed. During the paralysis the sleeper may hear imagined sounds like humming, buzzing noises, voices and whispers. Three-panel ecopack with artwork by Mastereaster.
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Maurizio Abate on The Maadi Sessions: "I visited Egypt for the first time in October 2016, spending a week there, and I went back for a longer period the next February. Both times I stayed at Sara and Alberto's place, a couple of friends who have been living in the Maadi district of Cairo for about a year. The first impact with the city and its inhabitants was definitely strong: I had trouble in defining the energy which pervades the streets 24 hours a day and the feeling of perpetual movement one gets from it. Although this vortex was fascinating, it sometimes originated some kind of alienation and estrangement on my behalf. I had to distance myself from the excess of stimuli. During my first visit, I was especially struck by the sounds, so I recorded some of them over my following stay, and I tried to mix them with my electric guitar, a sort of conversation between the inner world and the outside one. During the sessions in Alberto's house, I also experimented new techniques and effects on the guitar, approaching the instrument in a broader sense. The sessions originated the pieces on this record, which also feature a collaboration with Alberto Boccardi on one track, named after his house and headquarters of Canale Undici."
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A new Mike Cooper release is always a great event. Mike Cooper on the recording: "Distant Songs Of Madmen was recorded live in Palermo and was my solo set in a concert organized by Lelio Gianetti and Curva Minore, which included Truth In The Abstract Blues and Eugene Chadbourne. My set was free improvisation; some cover versions of folk and pop songs and some of my own songs. The title of the record and some of the improvised pieces were taken from Sam Shepard's writing. Sam, one of my favorite writers, has sadly died since I recorded this record and I dedicate it to his memory." Artwork by Italian artist Carla Indipendente. Mastered for vinyl by Brian Pyle (Ensemble Economique). Includes insert; edition of 300.
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