Member Since: 9/29/2007
Band Website: freeglitch.com
Influences: "Heathen Harvest" (Review)
During the past few months I have been finding myself gravitating towards the glitchy/experimental/droney end of the underground musical spectrum and I have been waiting for a chance to review something in this field – and that day has finally arrived with this offering from Salvatore Borelli’s (etre), the debut release on his Riz(h)ome records imprint. This disc, with the unwieldy title of “I can’t take my head to see HIGHER becouse the sky is landing over my neck†(including the deliberate glitch in the spelling of because), is nicely presented in handmade packaging (and available in seven different covers) and in an edition of 200, and is dedicated to two artists – Angus MacLise, one of the original members of the Velvet Underground (where he played bongos and drums), artist, composer, mystic, Crowleyite, poet and shaman; and Jackson Pollock, the American abstract-expressionist painter made famous by his ‘drip and slash’ style of painting and alcoholism. Using a wide variety of instrumentation, including such traditional items as both lap steel and electric guitars, esraj (an Indian instrument similar to a sitar but bowed instead of plucked), zither, shruti box (portable reed organ producing sustained drones) and kalimba (also known as an African thumb piano) together with voice & field recordings and laptop processing, Borelli brings us two extended tracks that display a wide spectrum of sonic treatments in bewildering array.
And bizarrely enough, for me anyway, each of these tracks is actually redolent of their dedicatees. Track one, dedicated as it is to MacLise, reminded me very much in parts of the Velvet Underground, with its use of drone passages, bursts of primitive percussion and apparent shambolic improvisation. Its initial stuttering start yields to much more prolonged and sustained passages, utilising voice, instrumentation and percussion, complemented with bursts of treated noise until finally the drone cuts through all to provide a canvas on which random glitchiness is painted. There is a strangely sacred feel to this, and this is entirely appropriate given that MacLise himself was of a mystical bent, as towards the end of his life he began bringing together eastern streams of mysticism (especially since his travels had finally brought him to the magical kingdom of Nepal) and transcendent music. This clever alternating of chaotic and ordered elements seems very much to sum up the course of MacLise’s life, at least what I have read of it.
The structure of the second track is much more of a slow evolution, from the chaotic to the ordered, which seems to reflect how Pollock’s paintings could be viewed. Pollock used a random method of painting, dripping the paint onto a canvas affixed to the floor and then manipulating the medium in a completely random fashion – likewise the piece starts by using random voices, staggered repetitions, juxtapositions and manipulations. However, given the propensity for the human brain to reject chaos and to inject order into disorder, the track echoes this quality of the mind by slowly bringing the element of structure to bear by the gradual introduction of such things as a steady glitch beat, drones and sounds derived from field recordings. Finally, after the build-up, the conclusion, the unveiling of the pattern, using a simple percussive kalimba figure backing up the sweet drone of the esraj and guitar feedback, before ending in a brief episode of randomicity. It’s quite a moving piece, and quite a fitting tribute to one of the most important painters of the twentieth century.
"Cyclic Defrost Magazine" (Review)
My first attraction to this release was some interesting artwork - a slightly surreal b&w landscape image on transparency sticky-taped to a grey card sleeve, packaged with a sheet of bizarre paper made from woven pieces of coarse metal tinged strips of thin bark-like material. And then there were the title references to visual artists, namely Angus MacLise and Jackson Pollock. (etre) is Italian experimentalist Salvatore Borrelli.There are two quite successful, 25 minute each tracks on the release. Improvisations on various stringed instruments such as guitar, lap steel, zither and esraj are processed and blended with found and field recordings to evocative effect. At one point in ‘Endstation Palindromes (for Angus Maclise)’, an Indian drone makes way for what sounds like crowd chants at an Italian football match, only for the crowd to be subsumed by the resurgent drone accompanied by a gang of digital glitches and other crackles, which subtlely merge into train rattles. This kind of eclectic jumping around keeps the mind occupied, first in identifying the sounds, then in establishing contexts for those sounds, then in trying to establish connections between them. You are encouraged to maintain a tight cerebral connection to proceedings, and that is where this release works best.Similar sonic journeys are travelled on the second track, ‘Music For Nobody And YOU (for Jackson Pollock)’, flipping between digital, analog, electric and electronic sounds. The movement of water in a variety of sizes and forms (drips, waves, waterfalls) work as excellent aural simulations of a Pollock painting. Some cliched orgasm simulations which creep in here and there undermine in places but are, thankfully, relatively brief.Overall, it is the jarring juxtapositions of sounds blended seamlessly which are this release’s greatest achievement. You are constantly transported to a remarkable range of divergent audio (and, by association, physical) spaces without realising there’s been much of a transition. This constant disorientation keeps you on your toes, never allowing you to disengage from what you are listening to.
"Liability Webzine" (Review)
A Post-Fordist Parade In The Strike Of Event (2006) avait entamé un cycle que Salvatore Borrelli avait nommé Trilogy Of The Voice. Entretemps, Voices Stomp Flames For Requiem Times (Ruralfaune – 2007) était venu poursuivre le projet. I Can't Take My Head... vient donc clore ce long effort électro-acoustique qui place (être), non pas comme quelqu'un d'à part, mais comme l'un des meilleurs artistes de sa génération. Du moins dans ce genre-ci. Pour autant si ce troisième volet fait partie d'un triptyque assez personnel c'est aussi une oeuvre de commande qui a servi à illustrer une installation réalisée par Federica Ravanelli. Echange de bons procédés, cette dernière sera aussi à l'origine des photos servant de visuel à l'album. Je dis bien des photos puisque cette édition possède pas moins de sept pochettes différentes. Pour en revenir au disque lui-même il est composé de deux longues pièces dont le thême principal est la relation amoureuse. Usant principalement de laptop, de guitares électriques, de voix, d'instruments indiens et de kalimba, Salvatore Borelli parvient à une musique presque mystique, un long champ d'exploitation de ressources sonores assez riches et qui se fondent dans un ensemble à la structuration aléatoire mais doté d'une profondeur certaine.Oeuvre difficile, elle se veut pourtant comme une musique qui serait l'écho même des relations homme-femme. Une interprétation qui reflèterait autant la pureté de la chose que sa complexité. Ce n'est pas un sentiment unique mais bien une multiplicité émotionnelle qui doit être prise en compte. Cela n'a pas échappé à Salvatore Borelli qui s'est efforcé de jouer sur cet état de fait. La chose n'est évidemment pas facile à mettre en oeuvre, pas plus que de trouver un compromis acceptable qui puisse permettre de créer un lien entre les différentes sensations. C'est pour cela que I Can't Take... n'est pas à sens unique et que dans chacune des deux pièces l'Italien se permet intelligement de prendre des chemins divers. Ces cinquante minutes, que Salvatore Borelli conseille d'écouter à fort volume tout en étreignant son ou sa partenaire, sont d'une belle intensité. Certes l'approche est sans doute des plus abstraites mais elle est aussi profondément humaine. C'est ce qui semble, finalement, être l'essentiel.________________________________________________
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These are some parts of internal cd. Images by Federica Ravanelli.
Record Label: Record Label
Type of Label: Indie