The Squid's Ear
Writing about improvised, contemporary, experimental and unusual music,
following the activities of Squidco...
  •  •  •     Join Our Mailing List!



The Squid's Ear




Heard In

Reviews of artist releases:
cd's, books, magazines, &c.


  Roberto Fega 
  Un Geco Nella Mia Casa
  (Creative Sources) 

   review by Max Schaefer
  2008-07-16
Roberto Fega: Un Geco Nella Mia Casa (Creative Sources)

Un Geco Nella Mia Casa augurs some of the social and philosophical implications of the aestheticizing of viral breakdown and digital distress. Any sort of magnetic distance between elements is depolarized and a grand liquidity, strangeness, and unreality abounds, sparkling in its venality.

There is a frisson of excitement evident in the playing with of all these hieroglyphs of digital dysfunction. This is reflected sonically, in the scrapes, pointillist percussion, disjointed metal, dulled, toxic drones, metamorphoses, and small moments of prolapse. At first blush, the music seems shaggy and boneless, as randomly distributed as bits of rubbish thrown together, only accidentally cohering here and there. Indeed, a certain pleasure is taken in the accidental, in a cruel, arbitrary order, but further investigation affords an appreciation for the sheer audacity of this seeming indifference and self-denial, which better enables things to hang together so loosely, and thus making these recordings feel foreign, as though constructed in accordance to some other, less discernible order.

The aestheticizing in question also turns these sparsely rhythmic and textural palette's toward ends of a more traditional sort. During tracks such as "La storia rubata" and "Quando la cadillac si fermera" Fega and the other players tend toward a dense and cerebral complexity, with electronic patina's wrinkled with squiggles of lightning finger dexterity and string curlicues, painted with a subtle control of volume, timbre, and delay. This approach enables Fega to map correlations and significant divergences between these two realms, the end result being a supreme equilibrium fraught with spasms and convulsions.

It's broken only by the odd piece, specifically "Insurgente", which includes a spoken word gambit, rubbing desperately up alongside sustained grainy multiphonics and some pensive grinding on cello. Here the album betrays its own principles, allowing them to be buried beneath a veneer of idiomatic pastiche. Other pieces exceed their own basic forms, generally by scraping and ebbing sparely, rising periodically to high tides of irate (musical) disagreement, then waning into near silent probing, and they are all a good deal more successful for it. Such pieces generally being the rule, Un Geco Nella Mia Casa shows that sound, virtuosity, and concept are now in the ascendant.

Max Schefer







Comments and Feedback:



More Recent Reviews, Articles, and Interviews @ The Squid's Ear...


The Squid's Ear presents
reviews about releases
sold at Squidco.com
written by
independent writers.

Squidco


Morton Feldman/
GBSR Duo w/ Taylor MacLennan:
Trios
[6 CD BOX SET]
(Another Timbre)



Angharad Davies/
Burkhard Beins:
Meshes Of The Evening
[VINYL]
(NI-VU-NI-CONNU)



Jessica Williams:
Blue Abstraction:
Prepared Piano Project
1985-1987
[VINYL]
(Pre-Echo Press)



Daniel Levin/
Laurent Estoppey:
Freedom From
The Known
(ezz-thetics by
Hat Hut Records
Ltd)



Kai Fagaschinski:
Aerodynamics
[VINYL 2 LPs]
(NI-VU-NI-CONNU)



Liz Allbee:
Breath Vessels
[VINYL]
(NI-VU-NI-CONNU)



Kris Davis and
the Lutoslawski Quartet:
Solastalgia Suite
(Pyroclastic Records)



Ernesto Rodrigues/
Guilherme Rodrigues:
Pico
(Creative Sources)



Ernesto Rodrigues/
Ines Ferreira/
Carlos Santos/
Monsieur Trinite:
Cimetiere des Bateaux
(Creative Sources)


Recent Selections @ Squidco:


Steve Lehman Trio +
Mark Turner:
The Music of
Anthony Braxton
(Pi Recordings)



John Cage:
Chamber Works
1943-1951
(Another Timbre)



Fieldwork (
Iyer/
Lehman/
Sorey):
Thereupon
(Pi Recordings)



Evan Parker/
Andrea Centazzo:
Bullfighting On Ice!
Live In Padova 1977
[VINYL]
(Ictus Remastered Collection)



Alvin Curran/
Andrea Centazzo/
Evan Parker:
Real Time
[VINYL]
(Ictus Remastered Collection)



Alvin Curran/
Andrea Centazzo/
Evan Parker:
Real Time Two
[VINYL]
(Ictus Remastered Collection)



Studer/
Strinning/
Weber:
Cut
(Creative Sources)



Reeder/
Seward/
Weathers:
Two Meditations From The Underground
(Editions Glomar)



Rotor (
Rodrigues/
Torres/
Santos):
Pulses and Paradox
(Creative Sources)



Udo Schindler/
Paul Rogers/
Ardhi Engl:
Ephemeral Essences
Of LowTone Studies (
For Trio)
(Creative Sources)



Eventless Plot:
Unlearning Noise
(Discreet Archive)







Squidco
Click here to
advertise with
The Squid's Ear






The Squid's Ear pays its writers.
Interested in becoming a reviewer?




The Squid's Ear is the companion magazine to the online music shop Squidco !


  Copyright © Squidco. All rights reserved. Trademarks. (12538)