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2LP
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HOL 120LP
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For a few years, Alessandro Bosetti has been collecting voices that become part of the Plane/Talea archive. The creation of the archive stems from dozens of individual meetings and recording sessions, in which each voice is detached from its owner or originator and anonymized. With each new iteration and performance, Bosetti plays the archive as if it were an instrument. He searches for hidden details and correspondences through exploration, immersion and contemplation. Each re-activation of the archive results in a dense and swarming polyphony made up of thousands of short utterances -- shorter than any word bearing a meaning -- recombined and interwoven into complex textures. The particularity of the grain of Plane/Talea lies in the autonomous and darting life that each of these fragments lives in a teeming community of voices. Such polyphonies are rich in microtonal detail emerging from the incessant juxtaposition of vocal objets trouvés. Harmonic relationships are sometimes rough and chaotic, other times surprisingly just. The voices are never treated electronically but only recombined and musical tension is provided by the particular grain, inflection, energy of each one of them in counterpoint to the others and to a frugally used instrumentation (harpsichord, Ondes Martenot, Cristal Baschet, grand piano, analog synth, Hammond organ). Implicit reference goes to ancient, modern and postmodern forms of vocal polyphony. Plane/Talea 31-34 -- the continuation of the homonymous 2016 LP (HOL 096LP) -- is a work of sampling that projects an imaginary community and a disembodied choir. The four arching and extensive tracks were created between 2017 and 2018 and bear the trace of two specific moments: August nights in a country house in Vicobarone, in the hills of Piacenza (31-32) and a week-long residency at the "Studio Venezia", an environment created by French artist Xavier Veilhan in the French pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale (33-34).
"Encounters of this sort did happen, with the voice still clinging onto its own origin, and then seen, as it were, coming out of the original mouth and caught saying other things, with a slightly different intonation, a slightly different timbre, maybe due to a little aging, an extra cigarette, a cold. At that point we would come out unsettled, or maybe convinced that it was not the same voice anymore, but another." Edition of 300.
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LP
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HOL 096LP
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Italian composer Alessandro Bosetti presents Plane/Talea. Bosetti explains: "The cycle of compositions collected under the title Plane/Talea reflect my interest in vocal polyphonic music. They envision an 'impossible choir' constructed through the sampling of thousands of fragments and pieces of voices, my own and those of others, and their re-composition into polyphonic garlands and textures. This cycle can be intended as the utopic sonification of an impossible community in which the voice is atomized into primary particles and later reconstituted into sonic masses and clouds. These are too dense and complex for a chorus of real human beings to sing. The music of Plane/Talea is the sonic projection of such a community. The voice is not processed or altered in any way but subjected to molecular reorganization. Theoretically, a hyper-chorus could sing material of this type but, perhaps fortunately, such a choir does not yet exist. Up until now, in the process of creation of my vocal music, I've kept two poles and influences in balance: that of madrigalism, in its late renaissance and contemporary incarnations, and that of hyper-polyphony, which is close to spectral music. Though not ever having actually written in one or the other of these two styles, I've always felt this unresolvable and fertile tension in my work." Recorded, composed and mixed by Alessandro Bosetti at GMEM (Centre National de Création Musicale in Marseille). Additional recordings by Attila Faravelli at Spazio O', Milano. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin; Embossed lettering; Edition of 300.
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CD
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SED 055CD
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"Alessandro Bosetti is a longtime friend and a musical colleague of many of our friends as well. We have followed Bosetti's creative development over the years and admire his challenging and often discomfort inducing works and live performances. Though we assumed that his sharing the recording of Zwolfzungen with us a few years back was just to keep us abreast of another of his unique projects( this one originally as a piece for German radio), it's power and musicality struck us as being his most realized work up that point and it was clear and without hesitation that we should make it tangible via the label. We feel it is a perfect synergy of Bosetti's deep interest in text based works combined with all of his broad and dexterous musical abilities. A subtle and understated masterpiece. We are also proud to once again be working with Shelter Bookworks(re: Area C) on the creation and design of the handmade cardstock sleeve. Their attention to the detail of materials and execution is unmatched. The inclusion and choice of the eerie and charming drawings of Erin Womack as the artwork for the panels help make this document more than the sum of its parts and something to behold."
Artist statement: " I like to listen to languages I don't understand. I like the moment when the understanding of words stops and every language starts to 'make noise'. All languages have a special sound, some more than others have particular acoustic characteristics that delight this musician's ears. For Zwolfzungen I colllected recordings of eleven languages I'm not, or partially, able to speak and understand. Eleven languages I encountered in my travels, whose sound I especially liked. Moreover, I invented a twelvth one, developed and learned during the past years and featured as a last instalment of the series. Zwolfzungen could be translated as twelve languages as well as twelve tongues. I try to 'misunderstand' each one of those languages as much as I can. They include, among others: Dogo, Basque, Urdu, Mandarin, Cherokee, Japanese and Zulu. For each language's recording I developed a specific piece of music, dis-engaging from the meaning of the words and instead concentrating on its sound and rhythm. The pieces are not intended as features or documentaries as I'm not inserting any explanatory aspect into their context. I used whatever compositional ideas and methods the source material inspired : tape collage, electro-acoustic processing, max/msp, low-fi sound devices and then performed them live, mixing my voice with pre-recorded and realtime electro- acoustic materials. Each piece is a unique musical universe and be may listened to individually or as a total group. Zwolfzungen was originally commisioned in 2005 as a radio art piece for DeutschlandRadio Kultur in Berlin and re-worked as a multi-channel live performance in 2007."
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CD
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ZEIT 005CD
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"Based on a series of 33 musical ideas written, printed, framed and 'exposed' in a recent installation in Milan, Exposé is the first of a new cycle of works as well as the result of Alessandro Bosetti's fascination with speech loops. The mesmerizing voice of Audrey Chen, endlessly repeating the same sentence over the entire duration of each piece, is full of musical nuances, and it rewards close attention. The result is a weird and fascinating experience, that takes the listener through a surreal sonic space. The misty, microtonal electronics and instrumental layers are arranged and recorded in an extremely precise fashion. The slowly shifting speech-derived rhythmical patterns provide a subtle, low-key backdrop to the vocal parts, perhaps suggesting the option of adopting an ambient-like listening strategy, while at the same time the use of headphones will enhance the work's strangely compelling blend of the surreal and hypnotic."
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