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Leonardi, Stefano / Antonio Bertoni: Viandes [CASSETTE w/ DOWNLOAD] (Astral Spirits)

Using unusual techniques and a collection of instruments that include the standard Western instruments of cello and flute, along with guembri, sulittu, dilli kaval, bass xun, launeddas (mancosedda, tumbu), plus the application of objects against strings, the Italian duo of Antonio Bertoni & Stefano Leonardi engage in seven remarkable and assertive improvised duos.
 

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Antonio Bertoni-cello, guembri

Stefano Leonardi-flute, sulittu, dilli kaval, bass xun, launeddas (mancosedda, tumbu)


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Label: Astral Spirits
Catalog ID: AS158CS
Squidco Product Code: 30277

Format: CASSETTE
Condition: New
Released: 2021
Country: USA
Packaging: Cassette
Recorded on October 26th, 2018, by Antonio Bertoni.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"One of the best perspectives with which to savor human existence was provided by Jacques Attali, when he declared that the world should not be looked at or read, but listened to. In the last hundred years, the propensa

"One of the best perspectives with which to savor human existence was provided by Jacques Attali, when he declared that the world should not be looked at or read, but listened to. In the last hundred years, the propensity of many cultural projects has been to verify the "sounds" of the world, going beyond musical instruments, and benefiting from the incredible acoustic qualities that nature has given us a long time ago: stones, shells, flints or rudimentary ancient flutes are able not only to trace an aural path, that is, to determine our geographical position for listening, but are also capable of providing very particular sounds, which are the envy of any experimenter or builder of sounds.

How timely can it be to look at the past and ancient sounds? A lot. Given that any advancement in techniques will not be able to scratch the symbolic meaning attributed to music by a community, the challenge lies in knowing how to obtain the maximum result in relating sound practices spaced apocalyptically over time. It is something that is also based on respect for men and their concepts of life: today, faced with the spread of musical slavery that persecutes us, it is the same science that is asking for help from the arts, an ideological sustenance useful for facing truths that they hide in the power of music, sometimes disposed of in tribal practices or circumstantial rites.

Viandes's drawing, carried out by the musicians Stefano Leonardi and Antonio Bertoni, lands heavily in a field unwanted by the consumer society, in the same way that today visitors to a Paleolithic cave look with suspicion at the places and habits of their predecessors: the control and vanity of attitudes have overcome any will to restore an open channel to what is apparently not visible. Viandes' idea is to regain possession of a communication that is through the inanimate, appropriately solicited: improvisations (those of today as well as those of long ago) worked on traditional instruments from a part of the world or on instruments prepared in such a way as to to grasp a constant reference to an implicit objective materiality, as the desire to represent the musical sense of the past and to develop a tactile sensitivity of the music. It is a workshop of knowledge that takes place between the two musicians: on the one hand, Leonardi immerses himself in a series of temporal and geographical stratifications that can be connected to the exhalations: from the xun (an ancient Chinese globular flute) to the dilli kaval (a flute in Anatolian wood), from transverse flutes to Sardinian "pipes" (the launeddas, released in its three parts, and the silittu, an obsolete flute made of elderberry wood); on the other, Bertoni governs the laws of friction, dividing itself between the guimbri (traditional Gnawa stringed instrument) and the cello, prepared and played to live a carnal experience of rubbing. The matter of "blowing" and the matter of "handling", intended as the main responsible for musical creation, meet for a rare session of beauty and instrumental simulation, of energy and instincts, capable of making us experience the overflow of sounds, the rough stone (maneuvers to approach ancient quarries or the pavement of one of our urban roads) or the industriousness of a community. They are very high-profile improvisation experiments, which we should all follow up, relying on what looks like a temporal "upside down" of the sound material. In two words, an apology for the future in defense of music."-Ettore Garzia (translated by Google)

ity of many cultural projects has been to verify the "sounds" of the world, going beyond musical instruments, and benefiting from the incredible acoustic qualities that nature has already given us a long time ago: stones, shells , flints or rudimentary ancient flutes are able not only to trace an aural path, that is, to determine our geographical listening position, but are also capable of providing very particular sounds, which are the envy of any experimenter or maker of sounds. How timely can it be to look at the past and ancient sounds? A lot. Given that any advancement in techniques will not be able to scratch the symbolic meaning attributed to music by a community, the challenge lies in knowing how to obtain the maximum result in relating sound practices spaced apocalyptically over time. It is something that is also based on respect for men and their concepts of life: today, faced with the spread of musical slavery that persecutes us, it is the same science that is asking for help from the arts, an ideological sustenance useful for facing truths that they hide in the power of music, sometimes disposed of in tribal practices or circumstantial rites. Viandes's drawing, carried out by the musicians Stefano Leonardi and Antonio Bertoni, lands heavily in a field unwanted by the consumer society, in the same way that today visitors to a Paleolithic cave look with suspicion at the places and habits of their predecessors: the control and vanity of attitudes have overcome any will to restore an open channel to what is apparently not visible. Viandes' idea is to regain possession of a communication that is through the inanimate, appropriately solicited: improvisations (those of today as well as those of long ago) worked on traditional instruments from a part of the world or on instruments prepared in such a way as to to grasp a constant reference to an implicit objective materiality, as the desire to represent the musical sense of the past and to develop a tactile sensitivity of the music. It is a workshop of knowledge that takes place between the two musicians: on the one hand, Leonardi immerses himself in a series of temporal and geographical stratifications that can be connected to the exhalations: from the xun (an ancient Chinese globular flute) to the dilli kaval (a flute in wood of Anatolia), from transverse flutes to Sardinian "pipes" (the launeddas, released in its three parts, and the silittu, an obsolete flute made of elderberry wood); on the other, Bertoni governs the laws of friction, dividing himself between the guimbri (traditional Gnawa stringed instrument) and the cello, prepared and played to live a carnal experience of rubbing. The matter of "blowing" and the matter of "handling", intended as the main responsible for musical creation, meet for a rare session of beauty and instrumental simulation, of energy and instincts, capable of making us experience the overflow of sounds, the rough stone (maneuvers to approach ancient quarries or the pavement of one of our urban roads) or the industriousness of a community. They are very high profile improvisation experiments, which we should all follow up, relying on what looks like a temporal "upside down" of the sound material. In two words, an apology for the future in defense of music."-Ettore Garzia


Artist Biographies

"The Italian Anthony Bertoni is a double bass player-cellist-luthier who likes to extend the sonic range of his old, new and his own invented instruments - among them recycled guitars, double string moth bow, amplified table, tea-set instruments and motorized musical box - with found objects and electronics."-Eyal Hareuveni, The Free Jazz Collective

-The Free Jazz Collective (https://www.freejazzblog.org/2018/08/meet-experimental-bass-players.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Stefano Leonardi (*1978) is a flutist, composer and improviser, resident in Trento (IT). He began to blow into a flute essentially as a self-taught, at the age of eight. In addition to traditional flutes, he also plays instruments from other cultures (xun, kaval, sulittu, koncovca, launeddas). He deepened and practiced improvisation with Stefano Benini and Geoff Warren. As an improviser and performer, he is often on stage and plays topical and new music, focusing especially on improvised music. He is attracted to research on sound and its relationship with space, memory and time. Recordings of his original music have been released by Splasc(H) Records (IT), Nu Bop Records (IT), Leo Records (UK), Astral Spirits (USA)."

-Stefano Leonardi Website (https://stefanoleonardi.it/biography/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. Lupercus 08:33

2. Fleau 07:13

3. Baccanale 04:00

SIDE B



1. Viandes 08:44

2. Hircus 03:14

3. Schiocco 01:55

4. Fatua 04:43

Related Categories of Interest:


Cassettes
Physical Releases that include Download Codes
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Duo Recordings
Stringed Instruments
Woodwinds

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Astral Spirits.


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