04/03/2013

h.21 Auditorium San Fedele

Discovery Night

Ambient Utopias
Monolake (Gerhard Behles and Robert Henke)
Gobi: The Desert (1999)

Hyper-urban Landscapes
Burial
from Untrue (2007)
– UK
– Dog Shelter
– Etched Headplate
– In McDonalds
– Untrue
– Endorphin
– Near Dark
– Untitled
– Homeless

from Burial (2006)
– Untitled
– Night Bus
– Forgive

from Untrue (2007)
– Archangel

Audioreactive visual by Andrew Quinn

Acousmatic interpretation: Giovanni Cospito and Dante Tanzi

Ambient Utopias – Monolake

The abbreviation Monolake was born in Berlin in the early 90s was initially identified in a duo formed by Gerhard Behles and Robert Henke, but now – after the partner founded a software-house that deals with programs for making music – it is forward only by Robert Henke. Firmly inserted in the field of electronic music – the instrumentation used by Henke is made up almost exclusively of computers controlled by a console of his creation – Monolake are characterized by a very refined and high-level production that ranges from trance / dub tracks to purer and more impalpable ambient, characterized by a glacial sound of rare and captivating charm. The musical journey begins with the impressive Gobi: The Desert, their most successful record, a long suite that transports listening to a world of immense and nocturnal spaces, located in a remote nostalgic region. The trend is slow and meditative and is characterized by a sort of granulation of sounds that recalls the nocturnal sound of crickets and cicadas. Above this electronic dust that covers everything, a recurring drone expands that amplifies the spaces and their perception, so that the desert – the figurative one in the title and the sound one – becomes infinite space. Gobi is an excellent work, nocturnal, contemplative, with a very personal and engaging charm (Jazzer).

Hyper-urban Landscapes – Burial

With a particular mix of Untrue by William Bevan (alias Burial) the second stage begins, another exploration of the post-modern spatial imaginary, this time directed however towards the most banal urban places, however transfigured by an expressive density that perhaps had not been never seen in electronic music in the last 20 years. Musician of the UK underground, active since 2005 but prefers to remain hidden, Burial with his second cd Untrue brings the stylistic features of the nascent dubstep to unexpected destinations. In his second LP, Burial tries to focus on all the multifaceted experiences that have nourished the phenomenon over the course of a year: he somehow reinvents himself without upsetting what he had firmly transmitted in the first test, in the so-called Burial. Thus going to seek new horizons of peace for the whole “breaks” movement. Partly removed that deafening substrate of pachydermic beats, with Untrue Burial it strengthens its own melodic vein, inserting soul choirs, samples on the phone, intangible instrumental orientalisms, indecisive pseudo lounge digressions paradoxically comparable to the deepest house in a cyberpunk context -step / uk-garage of the Nineties. The dark annihilation gives way to a bleak picture in which a small light always appears to chase. The study extends beyond the confines of rhythm to treat the singing as an effect to be manipulated with each phrase. Hate and new love, through a shield of dub pulses, sacred keyboards, archaic scenarios. It was said before about the rhythms that Burial manages to compose, perhaps this is the step that still separates him stylistically from the many. The boy states that he likes crooked beats so much, that he enjoys playing them, and in this game he ends up overlapping and merging distant ideas. He pushes his proposal even more vertically, which is redefined in a thousand layers that are certainly not pressed but left free to touch and move away, creating fascinating and nebulous sound environments. Burial finally manages to open up, the darkness of the debut has become less dense, both on the man and on what he wants to tell us. But Untrue is a record that soon goes beyond William’s own intentions, becoming in the following years the manifesto of a new path, the supreme reference of dubstep that points to “pop”, even to certain r’n’b.