Andrea Sartori: Il tagliacode (Persona, 2007)

Stravinskian techno. Doesn't sound very zippy, huh?! But you'll change your mind after just a few notes, if you happen to listen to "Il tagliacode". The album's one of those jazzy, abstract, broken-beat-based acoustic/electronic hybrids which often go under the name "intelligent dance music"; unlike most of the music in the genre, though, crebrality's not the first trait emerging from its complexity. On the contrary, the main impression is lightness - which doesn't mean silliness: the music still sounds very classy, even "aristocratic", and the evident complexity of its rhythms clearly cuts out any connection with italo-disco's flippancy; instead of trampling the listener with mind-blowing rhythm discharges, though, the tracks catch him in carefully-built tech-house grooves, abstract-yet-airy lounge tunes mixing live instrumentation, glitchy exotica/soundtrack suggestions and acid electro basslines. It almost sounds like a 21st Century reworking of the old "library music" concept. You could imagine the result as some sort of Amon Tobin/Akufen meeting point, but much less ostentatiously "intellectual" than both. The best thing you can do's anyway checking out a couple of tracks ("Uova di gatto" and "Vodkatronic" for instance).

Andrea Sartori was born in Bologna in 1978. He graduated in Informatics and started making electronic music about the 90s, under the name Deepalso. Later, he met fellow Italian techno artist Touane, who introduced him to the guys of Berlin-based label Persona. "Il tagliacode"'s his only album up to now, and features eleven electronic tunes based on some manipulations of jazz-music reharsals recorded in Foligno.

Tracklist:

1. Supertele
2. Uova di gatto
3. Santa Chimera
4. Il tagliacode
5. Rompicapo
6. Ehi amigo, serve un'autoradio
7. Horror vacui
8. Oltre il profondo
9. Prima le signore
10. Vodkatronic
11. Outro

Download (~160 kbps)


Similar music on the blog:
Touane: Figura (Persona, 2008)
Jolly Music: Jolly Bar (Nature/Wide, 2000)

Å: omonimo (2006)

Free-rock trio Å's first (and only, at least until now) CD was also the first release for the series "Zeit" by the new cult label Die Schachtel, specialised in improvised and experimental, border-line music. It was received extremely well by indie rock press, to the point that the band's even been considered over-hyped.
Just two years later, there's not that much talk about the band, but the music's still as good as it were when it was released. Some passages may remind either This Heat, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, AMM or other radical electroacoustic improvisers, but even if it's a bit unfocused, the album is quite original and pleasurable (if you like the genre).

Here's an interview to the band (in Italian).


Tracklist:

1. My Memory Is Like A Film. That Is Why
2. I Am Really Good At Remembering Things, Like The Conversation I Have Written Down In This Book, And What People Were Wearing, And What They Smelled Like, Because
3. My Memory Has A Smell Track Which Is Like A Soundtrack. And When People Ask Me To Remember Something I Can Simply
4. Press Rewind And Fast Forward And Pause Like On A Video Recorder, But More Like A Dvd Because I Don't Have To
5. Rewind Through Everything In Between To Get To A Memory Of
6. Something A Long Time Ago. And There Are No Buttons, Either, Because
7. It Is Happening In My Head

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