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LP
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FAITICHE 035LP
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First vinyl edition of the album Rhetorical Islands, originally released by Giuseppe Ielasi in 2012 as a limited-edition CD on his Senufo Editions label, with recordings made in 2011 as a commission for l'Audible Festival, Paris. The album's ten tracks have neither titles nor accompanying text, standing for themselves as what Ielasi himself has called "isolated sound worlds." They are nonetheless unparalleled in their plasticity, acoustic events with a rare degree of tangibility. Ielasi evokes physical objects, some of which seem to have been constructed out of paper and cardboard, others based on a mechanics of elastic materials. Of course, these objects are hallucinations, and precisely because Ielasi constructs them so masterfully there's no need for any further information. Here's to everyone creating their very own sculptures while listening to Rhetorical Islands. The front and back cover features 0.058, a work on paper by the artists Thomas & Renée Rapedius. They make sculptures whose form and artistic inspiration are defined by their materials. Like Ielasi's acoustic islands, their impact derives from self-referentiality, resulting in paradoxical objects that embody both a detailed material study and a potential for free association.
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LP
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BT 102LP
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Black Truffle announce Down On Darkened Meetings, the first solo release on the label from the quietly prolific Giuseppe Ielasi. Recorded at Ielasi's studio in Monza outside of Milan over two days in February 2022, the seven pieces presented here continue the renewed exploration of the guitar that marks much of his solo work over the last few years. Emerging in the late 1990s as an improviser working primarily with prepared acoustic and electric guitars, the instrument became less prominent in his work over the next decade, ceding to loop-based constructs that would eventually split into abstracted takes on club music and hip-hop (including his work as Inventing Masks), on the one hand, and spectral electroacoustic explorations (such as the stunning triple disc 3 pauses), on the other. Returning to the guitar in recent years, he has approached the instrument as a source of shimmering metallic glissandi (Five Wooden Frames) or as the vehicle of elegiac double-tracked lines that feel almost like Frisell playing Feldman (The Prospect). Here, the focus is on electric guitar filtered, looped, and splayed out into fields of irregular echoes through a bank of pedals. Like many of Ielasi's releases, Down On Darkened Meetings is structured as a set of short untitled pieces (here ranging between two and six minutes in length) that single-mindedly explore a single instrument or source throughout. The opening track immediately introduced the distinctive timbral world of fizzing, heavily filtered tones, chiming harmonics, and woozy looping bass figures inhabited throughout. At points it becomes near impossible to trace these sounds to the strings of an electric guitar; at others, as on the final two pieces, the instrument is unmistakable, as Ielasi builds up his shifting loops from snatches of almost unintentional sounding half-playing that give these closing tracks a hushed, private atmosphere reminiscent of Tolerance's Anonym. While the repeating chords and hanging melodic figures present on many tracks call to mind earlier Ielasi classics like Gesine and Untitled, here the music feels less meticulously constructed than played: Ielasi's lyrical guitar lines obscured by a battery of effects at times come across like a dilated take on the outer-fringe fretwork of improvisers like Henry Kaiser and Raymond Boni, and the muddy, asynchronous fields of pops and hiss at times wander into areas reminiscent of the hand-played dub techno of Vladislav Delay's Multila. Like much of Ielasi's work in recent years, these seven pieces perform a delicate balancing act: between abstraction and immediacy, austerity and abundance. Imbued with Ielasi's distinctive lightness of touch, considered approach to pacing, and subtly psychedelic approach to the stereo field, Down On Darkened Meetings is a major new work from a quiet master of contemporary experimental music.
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LP
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KEPLARREV 002LP
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Aix is an outstanding piece of work by Italian electro-acoustic savant Giuseppe Ielasi, originally released in 2009 on Taylor Deupree's 12k label. The follow-up to 2007's August (12k) and Ielasi's first collaboration with Nicola Ratti as Bellows, also out in 2007 (Kning Disk). Originally only released on CD (12k), the album got a very limited vinyl issue on Czech label Minority Records in 2010. Keplar presents this extraordinary and timeless collection of nine evocative minimalist soundscapes on vinyl again after ten years. For more than 20 years, Giuseppe Ielasi has been releasing his recordings on labels like Erstwhile Records, Häpna, Kning Disk, Dekorder, 12k, Entr'acte. or Editions Mego, as well as on his own label Senufo Editions. The label Keplar has been on a long hiatus and is now back with its KeplarRev series presenting vinyl re-issues of essential electronic albums from the '90s and '00s, as well as new recordings by momentous electronic and ambient artists. Includes download code; Edition of 500.
From the original press release in 2009: "With Aix we see Ielasi building his layered, atmospheric music around rhythmic grids. Most of the time these are quite irregular and the pulses are not necessarily stable or clear. Where his previous work approached sound in a linear fashion Aix imposes a strong vertical development with the aforementioned grid and a production consisting of ons and offs, employing as much improvisation as Ielasi's previous work, but in a different way. Despite the self-imposed grid structure, Aix relies heavily on randomization. Not in the traditional sense of sound placement but instead of the spatialization of sounds, echoes, reverbs, and the stereo image. As a result, Aix has an amazing sense and clarity of space as the small fragments of sound breathe and find their own place in the mix, thanks to Ielasi's sublime skills as a mixer and engineer. Ielasi relied heavily on numerous short samples and combining them in ways that fell into his groove; some found from others' recordings and many more recorded during the past year. We hear fragments of percussive (acoustic) objects, drums, piano, trumpet, guitar, and, of course, synthetic textures. Although there is a distinct rhythmic pulse to Aix, Ielasi manages to mold it into something wonderfully languid and warm... and strangely inviting." Composed and recorded by Giuseppe Ielasi in Aix-en-Provence, Autumn 2008. Remaster by Giuseppe Ielasi. Cover photograph "Construction, Barcelona" by Taylor Deupree. Layout by Dan Dudarec/Marco Ciceri.
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3x7"
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HOL 055LP
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"Long delayed box collecting -- on six sides -- an appendix to the Stunt trilogy, started in 2008 with the Stunt EP then followed by (Another) Stunt and a (Third) Stunt. The project was focused on the use of a turntable as the only source generating pulses and rhythms by physically playing a selection of records, using a technique inspired by hip-hop turntablism. This gathering of samples results in a glitched sound texture bringing Ielasi's ambient imprint into a new dimension made of fragmented dance cadences, sometimes even adding a touch of dubstep grit to the mix. A soulful jam for a slippery dancefloor."
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12"
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TAIGA 006EP
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The second in a series of 3 EPs by Giuseppe Ielasi focuses on the use of one turntable and vinyl records as the source for raw material, with pulses as the main organizational principle. Short segments and loops or longer and more complex improvisations were collected via "turntablism" rather than through traditional sampling. Mastered and cut to lacquer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Pressed on 200g virgin vinyl and packaged in a full-color gloss-varnished jacket printed on heavy stock. Photo by Italian artist Amedeo Martegani. Limited edition of 500.
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CD
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HAPNA 028CD
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Giuseppe Ielasi is an Italian experimental guitarist and electronic musician, and this is his second release for the Häpna label. Known from his improvisatory work with Dean Roberts, and his highly inventive guitar explorations in the vein of Oren Ambarchi and Loren Conors, Ielasi also founded the well-respected Fringes label. The new untitled album by Giuseppe Ielasi lives in a land of light and shade. The mist lies thick but close to the ground, and it's glowing and sparking. Reflections shoot wildly in encrypted tongues. The log-cutters are working with their timber. This is Ielasi's most complex work to date, both in regard to instrumentation and compositional form. A well-prepared decoction of dark cinema, wanderlust and experimental sound manipulating techniques.
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CD
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HAPNA 021CD
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"New solo work from this Italian experimental guitarist and electronic musician. Known from his work with Dean Roberts and in more improvised contexts. These six pieces are all made up of guitar in different forms, sometimes electronically treated, but in a very organic manner. Drones, guitar techniques derived as much from folk as the experimental music field, and a calm, haunting atmosphere make up the basis for this beautiful album."
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CD
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SED 035CD
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"A year and a half in the making, this remarkably dense and subtly musical effort marks a rupture/diversion in Ielasi's creative output. The intersection of electro-acoustic sonographies infused with fragments of melancholic melodies creates a near dizzying disorientation. In 1998 Iealasi founded the well-respected Fringes label, in order to document his own work as well as that of other artists. In addition to his work on Fringes, he has recorded for such labels as Leo and Sonoris, Erstwhile and Absurd. He has performed live with Taku Sugimoto, Jerome Noetinger, Dean Roberts, Thomas Lehn, Michel Doneda and Brandon LaBelle, Domenico Sciajno among many others."
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