released February 27, 2022
Guitar and tapes are the ingredients used by Luca Sciarratta, and these tapes contain a variety of partly concrete, partly abstract, but overall rather ominous sounds. All the more ominous because the guitar drones don't only imply the brooding, but rather static atmosphere of much dark ambient. No, the taped sounds pulsate, jar, and clatter with frantic, feverish activity, but an activity that seems either pointless or headed for disaster … which seems to arrive in the form of rather dissonant, distorted power chords and more dissonant drones layered on top of each other.
The titles certainly underline the overall feeling of unease: “Guitar Mud” or “Entire Line – Feverish Song”, and even “Landscape in Yellow” (which might innocently refer to cornfields, but somehow the music gives the lie to this interpretation) seem to conjure up images of landscapes or situations in a state of disaster, of military or climatic causes, bombed or drowned, with the murky sonics (which are aptly accentuated by the cassette format) working to substantiate the flood metaphor.
The title of the release itself, “Distant Deduction” or “Distant Derivation”, might imply that all these interpretations might be too literal, too far-fetched. Perhaps this is unavoidable with music that appears at a moment when the world as we knew it is shattered to pieces. Almost certainly, these interpretations do not do justice to the depth and intensity of Luca Sciarratta's music. But with absolute certainty, this is music that makes for uneasy listening, which does not paste over the ills of the world but forces us to look the danger and fear, the doubt and incertainty in which we find ourselves in the eye. It might even want us to wish for less of these things, and that is a wish which – unlike hope – might even push us into agency. And that is a quality in music that cannot be valued highly enough.
File under: drone, electroacoustic, dark ambient
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BAD ALCHEMY
Über LUCA SCIARRATTA kann ich nur sagen, dass er im Powertrio fRr(r) gewütet und mit dem Algorithmic Composer Dario Sanfilippo als L'addimmuru gespielt hat (beides auf rudiMENTALE und schon ne Weile her). Offenbar operiert er in Bournemouth, jedenfalls ist „Temere Me Tangis“ (ACP 1307) letztes Jahr dort entstanden. Derivata Distante (ACT 1056, C-36 w/ abstract art) zeigt ihn erneut mit Gitarre & Tonband, und mit Musik, die von den Augsburgern als Uneasy Listening empfunden und beworben wird. Und dass sie, statt die Übel der Welt zu verkleistern, uns zwänge, der Gefahr und Furcht, dem Zweifel und der Ungewissheit ins Auge zu schauen. Dass sie womöglich sogar den Wunsch erweckt, dieses Ungute zu mindern, und einen daher zum Handeln drängt. Subtiler könnte man das Wörtchen 'engagiert' kaum umschreiben. Und ableiten von eigentlich nur vagen Andeutungen, wie 'Gitarrenschlamm', 'Il tuo verbo, un'armonia chiusa', 'Fieberhafter Gesang', 'Landschaft in Gelb'. Allerdings ist das klanglich durchaus legitimiert durch Sciarrattas Reibung von sonorem, dumpfdunklem Gitarrensound an knurschig mahlenden und schwungradähnlichen Geräuschen, die die Gitarre und das Klümpchen Schleim in einem warmen Moorzur rauen, eisernen Seite hin lenken. Zur Seite des Gottes, der's Eisen wachsen ließ, der lehrt, Pflugscharen in Fräsen und in Schwerter umzuschmieden, in bebend angerauter, ungut dröhnender 'Harmonie'. 'Linea intera – canto febbrile' 'singt' in postindustrialer Düsternis und zeigt die Linie auf, die in ihren roten Bruchstücken allmählich wieder erkannt wird als nihilistische Schwelle, wie sie Jünger und Heidegger diskutiert haben. Sciarratta lässt da in eisernem Rumoren, Flattern und Scharren noch einmal Werkstättenlandschaften und Materialschlachten aufscheinen, deren Schwefelgelb wie giallogelb psychopathologisiert erscheint. Factum brutum - die Menschenwürde ist jederzeit antastbar, die Freiheit nicht unverletztlich, das Recht auf Leben und Unversehrtheit etwas zum Arschabwischen. Aber keine Sorge, die kulturpessimistischen Kassandrarufe (im Postindustrial), die düsteren Vorahnungen (des Dark Ambient), sie werden nicht lange Konjunktur haben – denn wo blieben dann das billige Gas und der ganze Spaß?
badalchemy.de
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VITAL WEEKLY
The name Luca Sciarratta appared twice before in Vital Weekly, two weeks in a row (563 and 564), when I reviewed some CDRs from his Rudeimentale label, as well as some of his music. I have no idea whatever he has been up to between 'then' and 'now', but here we have two tapes, released by Attenuation Circuit. Sciarratta is a guitar player, specializing in the 'prepared guitar' variety, along with tapes, objects and self-made instruments. If I understood correctly both cassettes were released at the same time, and, essentially, contain similar material. The package is different; one is a plastic bag, the other in a plastic case. Sciarratta's music is somewhere along the lines of noise meets improvisation meets industrial music meets musique concrète. And yet it is never fully one thing or the other. Throughout there is certainly darkness in these pieces. I am not sure, but it might be the way the music is recorded. I would think by using a pair of microphones, so that the space the the amplifier is in, becomes part of the music. There is a certain in the music to be noted. The music lacks the hectic of pure improvisation, there isn't the feedback of pure noise, and also remotely distant from pure industrial music. In fact, I can't think of anyone whose work can compare with this; not that it is important or even relevant. Although I am not always convinced by the music, I am sure that Sciarratta has a voice of his own here. His solo guitar music, defining easy description, but it's interesting to hear someone moving away pure noise or pure drone and finding another ground to let the six strings sing. I can imagine that Sciarratta would be an exciting partner in the world of improvisation, so hopefully he will expand in that direction one day too.
www.vitalweekly.net/1333.html
