CD + book – Aagoo

After the audio-video bender happened in between the end of 90s and the first two decades of the new millennium to many contemporary composers, mostly belonging to the most tendentious and conceptual experimental scene, it’s time now for a retour à l’ordre. This often follows the making of abstract music projects, as a result of many suggestions and images. Compared with the last seasons ones, the images seem definitely more static, photographic and traditional. Recently, the number of releases presented in attachment with big booklets has largely increased, as a new moment of glory for printing, that actually has never become as old fashioned as many wrongly claim. It’s a waiting status, as with the title of the first track (“Waiting”), the feeling of such post-avantgarde movements, here wonderfully represented by the multiform composer, musician and producer Eraldo Bernocchi and by the Japanese ambient guitarist Chihei Hatakeyama, no less eclectic than his partner, his talent with the resonances, dilated loops, changes of volume and quietism is undeniable. Also, the title of the second track, “Those Glorious Days”, suggests us some sibylline concatenations between the elements among the cuts, and the considerations about the current situation of the avantgarde music, its audience, and the survival of some art forms still niche but no more monolithic than in the past. The album is very elegant and well packaged, the artwork and the colour photos by Petulia Mattioli and the black and white images by Yasushi Miura are impressive. Throughout the five tracks, the mix between inanimate sounds and beatific sequences is calibrated, thanks to the use of guitar and special effects and the urge for more airy and meditative structures. The passages of “Shapeless Buildings” are inorganic and remind us of something already abandoned, lacking some function or destiny. The same feelings are moved by “The Mistakes Box”, and “Unopened Letters”, this last just a little bit more airy and serene than the others. In the air there is always some melancholy, probably an essential part of the duo’s style, also represented by the black/white and color photos by Miura, a mix of metropolitan spaces and traditional elements, relics and nature, intimate moments and enigmatic shots.

 

Eraldo BernocchI & Chihei Hatakeyama -Solitary Universe