10″ Vinyl – Arbitrary

This is the third chapter from Arbitrary in a series launched by Mads Emil Nielsen, Framework, a project focused on open and hand-drawn graphic scores which includes subjective translations by the Danish composer. Nielsen, who grew up in a family of architects, seems naturally attracted to the idea of ​​intuitively sonifying an image, just as it is just as natural for him to conceive of creative work as a process of collective exchange. For this occasion, Nielsen calls on Katja Gretzinger and Nicola Ratti to collaborate on the project, the former a graphic designer who translated the music created into a series of visual annotations, the latter a musician and in turn an architect, involved in creating sonic reinterpretations of graphic scores. Gretzinger has developed various symbols, shapes and structures such as dots, bars, 3D dots, irregular patterns, “swarms” and regular patterns (vertical hatches) for these scores. These were combined with found artwork and cutouts from old prints and layered with large geometric shapes, which define the individual character of each of the three parts. The resulting 18-page graphic score is included in the publication in the form of risograph printed sheets. Ratti reinterpreted the image-based scores as a selection of sound elements positioned in a three-dimensional area, which he visualized as the space between the composer-artist and the speakers. Mads Emil Nielsen and Nicola Ratti each made three compositions. Nielsen’s have a more electronic approach and with different structures, in constant change, while Ratti, who is also known for having been a guitarist in the 2007-2013 Ronin, a well-known Italian rock group, maintains a more sedate and elegiac, albeit minimalist register, confirming his deep interest in the relationship between sound and space and in creating structures and sequences of simple autonomous events that are complex as a whole. Listening to the album, recorded at the legendary EMS (Elektronmusikstudion) in Stockholm, is very pleasant, full of surprises and moments of great musical quality.

 

Mads Emil Nielsen + Katja Gretzinger + Nicola Ratti – Framework 3