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Another contender for Album of the Month is the Phonorama CD that was given away free to subscribers of The Wire magazine (issue #296 Oct 08).
Phonorama is a live electronics ensemble featuring some of Italy's most advanced improvising musicians, including members of Sinistri, 3/4HadBeenEliminated, Invernomuto and OLYVETTY.
Produced by the Bologna based Xing organisation (find them online at xing.it), the Phonorama CD contains an exclusive mixdown by Valerio Tricoli and Riccardo Benassi of material recorded by the ensemble live at Raum, Bologna 9/11/07 (2nd edition), 16/12/06 (1st edition) from two collective performances, conceived by Riccardo Benassi for Xing.
The two recordings have been mixed down to become one long untitled piece lasting under half an hour. The piece reminds me of works by MIMEO, Robert Lippock and in places it breaks out into Christian Fennesz territory.
Phonorama are continuing the MEV (Musica Elettronica Viva) live acoustic/electronic improvisational ideal that raged through Italy in the 1960s. Unlike the aggression their musical ancestors encountered (MEV performances could on occasion end up turning into riots due to their use of ‘found sounds’ and primitive analogue synthesizers), Phonorama’s untitled piece opens up into small landscapes of glitch and warm filtered harmonics – welcoming you in. This is probably the best CD Wire magazine have given away, I’m looking forward to hearing more. Phonorama is: Riccardo Benassi, Roberto Bertacchini, Alessandro Bocci, Dafne Boggeri, Vittoria Burattini, Massimo Carozzi, Francesco Cavaliere, Fantasmagramma, Manuele Giannini, Invernomuto, Marco Lampis, Luciano Maggiore, Ootchio, Stefano Pilia, Claudio Rocchetti, Valerio Tricoli and Domenique Vaccaro.
I think I'm gonna use this blog to write about new music, new releases. Electronic music (for me at least) should always have at least one of its feet in the future, which is a great ideal - sadly most of my electronic music has both it's feet firmly in the past. So this is the perfect release to yak about because Foxx covers all ground; past and future. On Impossible we have the brutal proto-New Wave of The Man Who Dies Every Day, which originally appeared on Ha!-Ha!Ha! way back in 1977 and then we fast-forward to the Ballardian future that is A Million Cars.First the cover-art, which is some exceptional collage work from the 70s. But what the hell is it? What is the head? Is it a stadium? The back of a cruise-liner? Either way, I can see thousands of people heading into a fire – a very Burroughs-style of imagery there in the cut-up figure on the front.
Which is appropriate really for this cut-up of an album. On initial listens, it was hard at first to hear much difference between the originals and these re-workings, but slowly I found Impossible’s dark, stripped-back and sprawled out minimalist architecture quietly connected (the From Trash material benefitting greatly from this). Adult Concerns is a great introduction – the whole Burning Car feel sets up the dark edges that follow. Love the beat on it too – it feels like Foxx has remembered when he and Chris Cross sat in on Lee Perry’s Bob Marley sessions back in the 70s and that can only be good thing.
It’s just my opinion but the stretched out haze of X-Ray Vision is far superior to the original version, and then there’s a fantastic version of The Man Who Dies Every Day and the new version of Crash and Burn is a fantastic closer.
I really like this new, almost shredded direction; the shredded vocals, the rusting metallic synths, the filtered drums on Walk This Way. More Please.
