Luca Cartolari live-electronics, electric bass | Mirio Cosottini trumpet, fluegelhorn, slide trumpet | Alessio Pisani bassoon, contra-bassoon
Edition number fifteen of Amirani Records is CONO DI OMBRA E LUCE
EA Silence trio crosses dramatic soundscapes, outfiltering a nitid, spherical, dense matter. Whispering shadows gently flowing in the hidden dark space of an ancient synagogue. A morphing thunder pushed by acoustical swords, generating long distance waves and slow, inexorable tides. A stunning contemporary work deeply conceived to get perfect sounding ideas, dancing with the space around.
Tracklist: 1. After Machines 2. Medusa 3. Nuovo Topi ad Ur 4. Jaquar e Aimèe * 5. Avvio 6. Assenza 7. ExMod2 8. Si Chinerà al Vento
*Four scenes inspired to the story of Lilly Wust e Felice Schragenheim told by Erika Fischer in her book “Aimèe & Jaquar”
“… every small reverberation, every minimal alteration in tuning, every tonal movement in the doubling of space around the lyrical song of the instruments, sounds as if emerging from the background and becomes the real motor of an improvisational quest, not shy of using a score.” — Carlo Serra, Aesthetic Fellow at Università della Calabria, editor of De Musica, online magazine on musical aesthetics.
“Many have tried this approach before, and fell into the trap of syrupy sentimentalism, but this trio manages to have a consistently coherent unique musical vision, rich in ideas and tonal explorations, austere and disciplined in its delivery. Truly great.” — Stef Gijssels, Free-jazz blog
EA Silence CONO DI OMBRA E LUCE is proudly co-produced by AMIRANI RECORDS, GRIMEDIA RECORDS, MEDIADUCKS
Music _ Luca Cartolari, Mirio Cosottini, Alessio Pisani, Recording _ 2008, September 30th-October 2nd, Antica Sinangoga di Ivrea, Italy, Sound engineering & mixing _ EASilence, Mastering _ Maurizio Giannotti, New Mastering Studio, Milan, Italy, Title _ Giancarlo Majorino, Liners _ Carlo Serra, Translation _ Marco Bertoli, Photos _ Cinzia Bertodatto, Graphics _ Mirko Spino. Thanks _ Alessandro Cartolari, Sara Vittone, our families, Co-Production _ Gianni Mimmo for Amirani Records, GriMedia records, Mediaducks.
This work
– not infrequently humorous in its transparent and ironic combinations, its modified attacks, its deformed delevopment of melodic curves – presents us with an endless transformation effected through a rumoristic double, which ends up being a real shadow of the sound, or else suddenly merges with the background, leaving the listeners at the mercy of the genuine magic of a tonal quest, of contrasting expressive climates. Therefore, every small reverberaton, every minimal alteration in tuning, every tonal movement in the doubling of space around the lyrical song of the instruments, sounds as if emerging from the background and becomes the real motor of an improvisational quest, not shy of using a score.” — Carlo Serra, Aesthetic Fellow at Università della Calabria, editor of De Musica, online magazine on musical aestethics.
Electroacousticsilence
or EA Silence for short, is a trio with an unusual line-up: Luca Cartolari plays live electronics and electric bass (track 5), Mirio Cosottini plays trumpet and flugelhorn, and Alessio Pisani plays bassoon and contra-bassoon. The bassoon is an unusual instrument in modern music, but on the few albums that I know on which it’s played, the quality of the music is high (see especially Kris Tiner, with an almost similar line-up, but also Wayne Horvitz and Bill Dixon). The music brought by the trio is of an extraordinary stylish aesthetic, mixing classical music, sometimes even with a medieval pre-baroque touch, modern music, jazz and electronics. The music progresses slowly, solemnly, with trumpet and bassoon acting in unison, counterpoint, echo, with the electronics repeating the sounds at times, distorting them, or just providing a textural background, dramatic effects or ambient sounds.
The music also shifts between composition and improvisation, between crystal clear tones and more diffused tonal explorations. These contrasts, including the sharp difference between the high-toned trumpet and the dark sounds of the bassoon, make for a wonderful tension and musical depth of perspective, a chiaroscuro of sound. Unlike the Tiner-Phillips-Schoenbeck Trio, the sounds here are less intimate, more emotionally distant, more dramatic, but also more magnificent in their slow forward movement, creating a feeling of immense space and beauty. Many have tried this approach before, and fell into the trap of syrupy sentimentalism, but this trio manages to have a consistently coherent unique musical vision, rich in ideas and tonal explorations, austere and disciplined in its delivery. Truly great. — Stef Gjissels, Free-jazz blog, March 09
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Electroacousticsilence, or EA Silence for short, is a trio with an unusual line-up: Luca Cartolari plays live electronics and electric bass (track 5), Mirio Cosottini plays trumpet and flugelhorn, and Alessio Pisani plays bassoon and contra-bassoon. The bassoon is an unusual instrument in modern music, but on the few albums that I know on which it’s played, the quality of the music is high (see especially Kris Tiner, with an almost similar line-up, but also Wayne Horvitz and Bill Dixon).
The music brought by the trio is of an extraordinary stylish aesthetic, mixing classical music, sometimes even with a medieval pre-baroque touch, modern music, jazz and electronics. The music progresses slowly, solemnly, with trumpet and bassoon acting in unison, counterpoint, echo, with the electronics repeating the sounds at times, distorting them, or just providing a textural background, dramatic effects or ambient sounds. The music also shifts between composition and improvisation, between crystal clear tones and more diffused tonal explorations.
These contrasts, including the sharp difference between the high-toned trumpet and the dark sounds of the bassoon, make for a wonderful tension and musical depth of perspective, a chiaroscuro of sound. Unlike the Tiner-Phillips-Schoenbeck Trio, the sounds here are less intimate, more emotionally distant, more dramatic, but also more magnificent in their slow forward movement, creating a feeling of immense space and beauty.
Many have tried this approach before, and fell into the trap of syrupy sentimentalism, but this trio manages to have a consistently coherent unique musical vision, rich in ideas and tonal explorations, austere and disciplined in its delivery. Truly great.
— Stef Gijssels, Free-jazz blog, March 09
This’ the last release of the new Amirani lot that I happen to review and for Jesus sake if it took time for me to face it…why? I don’t know if you’re confident with the materials featuring musicians involved in Grim collective (EAOrchestra, EAQuartett, EaSilence), but it’s mostly contemporary music where nothing (or almost nothing) happens by chance and we’re dealing with the category of dead serious materials therefore light-hearted music fans “leave you hopes behind!”. I can see you yawning from behind your computer screen while cornering this review cause of the “dead serious” label, but holy shit this’ “just” A-division, this’ not another pseudo-intellectual-contemporary bunch of wannabes and you won’t take that many listenings to agree with me. If a curriculum still means something, this trio features Alessio Pisani (bassoon, contra-bassoon) and Mirio Cosottini (trumpet, flugelhorn, slide trumpet) coming from EAQuartett, EaSilence etc. and Luca Cartolari (live-electronics, electric bass) from Anatrofobia’s fame, the whole is equal to the sum of its parts? Not exactly but it may give an hint. While during the early tracks of the release they may give the impression they voluntarily engaged themselves into a score where the horn-section rules the scene, if you listen to the whole thing carefully I’m sure you can’t but notice electronics is there and sure bass is even more evident when it breaks into the scene. I think in many fragments of the second half of the work horns leave the unison-formula for a more dialogical modus operandi and where bass frequencies (be it bass or electronics) building up tension (ExMod2, Avvio) help reaching the climax of the emotional impact. Hard to find direct references even if you here and there you’ll find so many “quotes” from this or that composer, but beside that there’s a genuine blend where a couple of clean and tight-knit horns float imperturbably their way in a calm sea where electronics and bass are playing near the keel of the boat like dolphins usually do attracted by the foam. I will adopt again this sea metaphor since it goes really well to describe the profundity of this music which may be as frightening as the realization of the depth of the sea where the light gradually fades while going toward the bottom of the “bed”. Everything is so self-controlled and so quiet in the execution that the impression of imperturbability is so vivid, add in the majority of the tracks they pass from abstraction and sophisticated musical frameworks to really dramatic segments they display no fear to leave room and silence and you know pauses sometimes can be louder than ten thousands notes, substantially this trio, differently from a lot of wallpaper music, takes time to reach the core of significance. Be it I’m not the most take it easy person in the whole world, but this series of compositions sometimes has left me with a strong sensation of loss or maybe it’s just sadness, I think beside the synergy of the player what they managed to bring forth is the impression of being trapped into a solitary journey. Every note has been played with patience, every sound takes its time and its position on the canvas like objects in a De Chirico’s painting and I be damned if “Cono di ombra e luce” (which stands for “Shadow and light cone”) doesn’t give the impression of being the soundtrack of a surrealist showcase: time is melting away, geometry gets slowly distorted into a kaleidoscope everything looks as a parallel dimension. A surrealist CD? Somehow…but much more than this.
— Andrea Ferraris, http://www.chaindlk.com, may ’09
Gradual acceptance of electronics in improvised music has by now nearly turned to mass acquiescence. Today, CDs are as likely to capture synthesized and oscillated pulses the sounds of acoustic instruments. More importantly, this sonic reorientation has confirmed that novel resonances can be produced when mixing plugged-in and pure timbre instruments.
Harmonic and site-specific, Cono Di Ombra Luce is an exercise in spectral interpretation. Not only do trumpeter Mirio Cosottini, bassoonist Alessio Pisani and electric bassist Luca Cartolari utilize the live-electronics generated by Cartolari in several instant compositions, but the timbral polyphony also reflects the setting: an ancient synagogue in Ivrea, Italy.
Although this project rejects formalism for cooperation, members of the Italian trio still bring impressive credentials on the date. Cartolari has written customized programs for computers utilized in musical and other situations, while Genova-native Pisani has plied his trade in so-called classical orchestral settings. With Cosottini, Pisani co-founded of GRIM-Italy (Musical Improvisation Research Group). Cosottini teaches improvisation and composition at the Padova Conservatory and has worked with artists ranging from New York guitarist/composer Elliott Sharp, to Genovese saxophonist/composer Claudio Lugo.
Cono Di Ombra Luce’s characteristic shading is all about perceptions of depth, volume and form extended through tessitura mixing and reflection.
Plus there are historical and contemporary echoes as well. A piece like “Medusa” for instance, has a low-pitched mid-section is one part medieval ground bass and the other futuristic electronic burbles and rumbling thunder. Earlier, the horns’ harmony is split, with the bassoon moving in a chromatic line while the brass output is nearly heraldic. Sampled granular patters taken from the atmosphere arise on “Si Chinerà al Vento”. But they soon subsume legato trumpet breaths and pinging marimba-like slaps, created by bass-string hand tapping.
Supposedly inspired by Erika Fischer’s book Aimèe & Jaquar, Cono Di Ombra Luce’s track of the same name evolves in triple parallel lines. Taken andante, droning bassoon blasts and slurred trumpet cries inflate the collective vibrato that melds with clanking and buzzing electronics. Eventually, the synagogue’s porous walls provide an additional musical resonance.
Although the group is an equal creative partnership, Pisani’s background ultimately asserts itself on “ExMod2”, with the parts carved out as fastidiously as if this is replication of early notated music. Buzzing bassoon provides the shifting continuum, processional trumpet blares soar, while piezo-pick-ups allow the bass strings to pan in different directions as electronics crackle and buzz. Expanding with spectral reflections of the structure, the track provides an accurate summation of what EA Silence can create.
— Ken Waxman, http://www.jazzword.com, july ’09
The full name of the group, Elettroacousticsilence, and the album title neatly summarize mosto f the trio’s concernsas expressedin eight collectively-credited tracks. The trio makes electronic chambre music in a generally restrained style, lovingly captured in this recording made in a old Italian synagogue (9/30-10/2/08, Ivrea, Italy). Their general mood is analytic and spacious, working over their melodic material while leaving plenty of time for their delicate timbral variations to be explored and savored. “Medusa” is almost broque-sounding, while “Nuovi Topi ad Ur” moved forward fitfully with fragmentary march figures and dissonant clouds of sound. While at times the music feels somewhat ponderous and overly serious, more often the disc offers an intriguing mélange of careful playing and live electronics.
— Stuart Kremsky, Cadence, Jan. ’10
Stark, pure tones, often in chorale or unison, mark the work of Italian wind trio EA Silence. Low-key and meditative, Cono di Ombra e Luce resonates, warmly recorded in Ivrea’s old stone synagogue. These classically trained cats intone mostly somnolent set pieces: stiff, arch, through-composed, with subtly atmospheric electronic rumblings. The band also channels proto-renaissance fanfares (“Assenza”) and ECM-cool Nordic brass, adding light lacings of breath and percussive filigree. Alessio Pisani shows his woody, dry bassoon best when hustling excitedly on “Avvio” or improvising blue cadenzas on “ExMod2.”
— Michael Ricci, All About Jazz NY, Feb. 2010