Bosetti, Alessandro

Royals

Label: Monotype Country: Poland

"Three new compositions from Alessandro Bosetti carrying the mark of his unique style and techniques. Somewhere in between musical compositions, songs, literary essays, poems or unreligious mantras. They lie in between genres without embracing any of them. Closer references and influences as Robert Ashley, Rene Lussier, Peter Ablinger, Ornette Coleman (or even the asymmetrical rhythms of Steve Coleman and Henry Threadgill) are still too far away to become handy in describing this music.

He translates intonations of speech into complex and seemingly orchestral scores where meaning, tone and noise are melted into each other. Several variations of techniques known as shadowing or convolution were used in the making of it. Sometimes digital devices were used, some other times analogue - almost hand made - techniques. Bosetti refers to Arcimboldo's paintings from the XVI century as an inspiration to his craft naming it "examples of hand made convolution and shadowing". He has been pouring words into notes. Notes into noise and then again noise into meaning. He has been repeating, meditating, hallucinating.

In those recordings Bosetti is also heard on several instruments as harpsichord, piano and guitar besides his main one, the soprano saxophone. The core of "Gloriously Repeating" is a sinuous and recurring text and melody - generated from a short fragment from W.G. Sebald poem "After Nature" - exploring the implications of repeating while making repetition its main ingredient and embedded into an extended text sound form.

"Life Expectations" is constructed around the intricate emotional, rhythmic and melodic counterpoints of a casual conversation. Where the sensitive interaction between voices becomes the matter of this composition. Third and last piece, "Dead Man", is a surreal short composition whose text implies a ready made pseudo-zen philosophy of resurrection derived from quotes of Iron Maiden's song lyrics. Closely related to the music of Bosetti's ensemble Trophies with Kenta Nagai and Tony Buck, soon to be released on Monotype, Royals is the next step in the carving of a very personal musical language.

Alessandro Bosetti is a sound artist, composer and performer currently based in Berlin. His main focus is in the fringe area between spoken language and music. He created a series of highly compelling sound works where relational aesthetics meets innovative composition. Since 2000 he has been a key Ars Acustica figure, and created a vast body of work of hybrid, award winning, text-sound and radio compositions for the main Radio and Electro Acoustic Music studios in Europe. Among them, pieces like Il Fiore della Bocca (Rossbin/DLR 2005), a work on the vocality of the mentally and physically impaired and African Feedback, a collaborative scrutiny on experimental music in West Africa (Errant Bodies press, 2004) have received critical acclaim and are considered classic contributions to the genre.

Field research and interviews often build the basis for his abstract compositions along with electro-acoustic and acoustic collages, relational strategies, trained and untrained instrumental practices, vocal explorations and digital manipulations. Alessandro Bosetti is an emotional performer that has consistently toured in Europe, Asia and the United States. He's been presenting solo sets for voice and electronics blurring the line between categories such as electro acoustic composition, text-sound pieces, and performance. Most recently he's been involved in exploring repetitive speech-loop forms as a solo artist and with his ensemble Trophies with fretless guitarist Kenta Nagai and drummers Tony Buck and Ches Smith. Trophies, with two upcoming CD releases and a busy touring schedule has imposed itself as one of the most innovative and genre defying combos of the last years.

Blow Up magazine has called Bosetti "One of the most anomalous and fascinating figures in the contemporary scene", Dusted Magazine "rewarding, unique and surprisingly responsive encounter." For The Wire "Bosetti's work has undjudgemental embrace, complex transvaluations and challenges our liberalism." Bosetti's most recent CD Zwolfzungen has been listed as one of The Wire's best 15 outer limits cd's of 2010."-Monotype Records