Gianmarco Liguori

You have been marked on my profile map! Click to zoom-in..................................................... ............................................................ .Hope builds as a gentle throbbing glow in the distance comes into view, in orbit of the planet. Closer, I see it is another! Another of these great majestic floating orchids of space! The entire body of both creatures erupts into a blinding light of the brightest, purest white! Drawn together, the bright light pulses and glows. Hints of iridescent colours play at the fringes of their bodies, and gracefully they orbit one another. The dancing accelerates and the light pulses stronger, thumping. They draw closer. A strange song of triumph rings in my ears as the song, colours and a flawless feeling of pure joy mixes in my head in an intense spectacle filling my consciousness completely. My head feels too limited to contain the depth of the emotions being fed to it. The creature senses this and withdraws. I stagger backwards, mind reeling from the experience. My own consciousness and experiences fail to fill the stretched and flaccid container of my mind. The small versions of itself hang about the air all around, thousands of them now, and amidst this, behind the great creature, another huge body rises up from behind the other side of my ship. I feel both their minds, gently probing at mine - curiously, placidly. Then, like a faint murmur in the background, I feel myself tune in to the thousands of tiny minds of the offspring. Stunned, I stand for what must have been hours, until a steady beeping in my ears seems to want my attention. I recognise it as the oxygen warning on my suit. Slowly I step backwards, eventually taking my eyes from the specatacle before me, retreating into what I now see as my crude steel cocoon.I remove my suit. Back inside, I numbly drape myself back over my recliner. Instead of the emptiness I had become so familiar with, through the portal I see hundreds of these small dainty creatures bob like a cloud of bubbles around my ship. I still feel the two great minds. Not like before, but I feel they are there. My mind is struggling to come to terms with a new reality. Colours and pinwheels, as before, float before me in intricate patterns, and I close my eyes. I feel as though something of colossal importance has clicked into place. My previous sadness and wonder at the emptiness of space, and the feeling that something was not quite right, seems to make clear sense now, validated. Visions of a universe full of such beautiful colours, and the calm peacefulness of a loving greater consciousness seems to answer an unspoken question that had been in my chest for most of my life. I sleep, a sleep of one that has witnessed bare a glistening truth of the universe.-JCR D'Anvers ............................................................ .......................................................STOLE N PAINTINGS:GIANMARCO LIGUORI : 6 & 12 string guitars, additional bass & synthesiser KIM PATERSON: drums, trumpet, percussion MIGUEL FUENTES : bata drum, congas, bongo, llama toes, bells etc. MURRAY McNABB : piano, synthesiser, Hammond organ ANDY ATWELL : electric & double bass BRIAN SMITH : tenor saxophone, flute....................................................... ...Stolen Paintings is the weird and wonderful debut "solo" album from Salon Kingsadore guitarist Gianmarco Liguori. Working with some of Australasia's finest jazz musicians, Liguori has come up with a world of sound that blurs the gaps between psychedelic rock, free jazz, lounge and world music."I'm not a jazz musician" he explains. "But I'm really influenced by jazz. When I was writing the music for the album I was definitely writing with these guys in mind. I tried to stay in the background as much as possible as far as playing was concerned. I just set up musical situations and gave them minimal instructions. I asked these guys to play on the album because I knew they could come up with what I was looking for without having to talk too much about it..."Liguori teamed up with his friend and former trumpet tutor, Kim Paterson for the project, and through him got involved with the other musicians who appear here. The veteran musicians who contributed to the album have had decades of recording and performance between them since the early 1960s, in the United States, Europe, South America, Asia and Australia, performing with some huge names in jazz. The composer himself can't read a note of music, so what was it like working with musicians who have recorded and played at such a high level?"Well, they weren't under any illusions that I was some kind of virtuoso or anything like that, but could see that what I was coming up with could be a good vehicle for interpretation & improvisation. Certain passages had to be transcribed though, because I couldn't tell them which chords I was playing".Taking inspiration from 1960s film soundtracks, Stolen Paintings weaves a loose story throughout the album as though it were a soundtrack itself. It may be instrumental, but that doesn't mean it should be taken as "wallpaper" music."I'm really interested in the fact that all these guys like Piero Piccioni, Ennio Morricone and Krzysztof Komeda had more of a collaborative relationship with the directors, so much so that they were free to create and experiment and make music that has outlasted and lived outside of so many of the films they worked on.I know that some of the music I'm making could be mistaken as elevator music. Sometimes subtlety and wordlessness seems to add up to easy listening. Anyway, I don't have a problem with the music being played in an elevator".STOLEN PAINTINGS will be available on Sarang Bang Records from October 6. Distributed in NZ by Triton Music. Available from: www.sarangbang.co.nz