Francesco Brunotti/Various Authors – Nocturne

Francesco Brunotti

Persistencebit Records, Italy, 2009

This is a product in the Bitmedia series, developed by the eclectic label Persistencebit. It is devoted to the production of multimedia works related to the ambient and modern electronics scenes. It’s a book of photographs by Francesco Brunotti properly entitled “Nocturne” that includes a cd album stuck to the last page. The full colour images portray empty urban territory at night, sometimes viewed from nearby countryside, so stepping out from the lights a little bit. The space then is the protagonist, with the photographer isolated in the emptiness of mostly neon light. And the night in itself is when the emptiness of the urban territory places a human body in a completely different audioscape, with a different light and perception of space – creating an unconventional mental condition. The mostly suburban mixture of concrete structures (buildings, plants, bridges), metal elements (train tracks and gasoline pumps) and nature resisting and often infiltrating the interstices is the stage for the musical compositions. The tracks were composed by nine different artists (Byla, Martux, Retina.It, Populous, Pleo, Scanner, Wang Inc, Ether, Tu’M). They were each given one photograph from the collection as a source of inspiration. The result is a dual product where the link between visuals and sound is strict and it is evident that it’s a good idea to enjoy the images’ many details while influenced by the sounds. The tracks set an ambient, atmospheric mood with different “accents”, and Scanner and Tu M’ provide us with the most suggestive ones.