Maurizio Bianchi (w/Hue and Fhievel)- Erimos
(DIGI048)
From Aural Innovations #39 (May 2008)
Pioneering Italian electronic composer Maurizio Bianchi teams up with fellow
countrymen Matteo Uggeri (Hue) and Luca Bergero (Fhieval) to produce an album
of subliminally disturbing electro-acoustic soundscapes. Subdued and arid, the
clusters of sound that make up the single 43-minute track on Erimos are derived
from a variety of sources, including taped sounds, prepared and processed acoustic
instruments, as well as organ and electronic instruments. Consequently, the
music on Erimos can hardly be called conventional ambient music. There’s
a more purely academic approach here that recalls the exploratory spirit of
such early electronic composers as Stockhausen, Xennakis and Cage. Though not
“music” in any harmonic or melodic sense, the dense collages of
sound (often evoking machines, generators and the like) have the effect of producing
eerie sympathetic vibrations somewhere in the deepest recesses of the human
brain. The result is that the listener may find him or herself slipping into
fugue states that resemble epileptic trances. Definitely for late night listening,
especially while a violent thunderstorm is rumbling its way toward your vicinity.
Visit the record label web site at: http://www.digitalisindustries.com
Reviewed by Charles van DeKree