Lighter than air music-collage/focus-group jam from residents of those fine city jewels Bologna and Rome! Tweaked to the pitch of a moth’s wing, this is a delightfully delicate murmur. The equipment list, as ever, gives us a clue. I’ve grouped the guff-orchestra for ease: mouth-puff – ocarina, saxophone, flute, voice, trumpet and harmonica, wrist-twist – viola, dictaphone, xylophone, guitar, accordion, percussions, piano and viola, brain-crinkle – electronics, editing, tapes, turntable and field recordings. There’s a whole bunch more channels opened but I’m sticking to this deft weaving of mouth/wrist/brain responsible for the guttering flicker of sounds, neatly folding along worn logic-lines like a large map of Easter Island. But what does it sound like? Looking closely you can see the micro-view through your gimlet eyes: dusty reeds draw gritty smog across their hungry mouth parts, ducks smacking bills excitedly, frenzied sucking, distant fireworks/fluff removed from cardigan (amplified), goats doing goaty business, UFO take off, ubiquitous birds, hissing of door-frames. Chinese electronics/traffic in Bologna cut-up via Dictaphone, bamboo pipe ritual induce Gnostic trance (but aping them ducks!). Exorcist out-take on thin copper wire and congealed music box. A Joycean setting: the Dublin pub, the craic gets out of hand when the old boys drag out a modular synth and castrated violin. Old songs are sung, the seals join in on radio interference and novelty glass bells. Dented gong attacks dolphin, its CIA brain implant tuning into world radio. The undersea kingdom kinks under great pressure and the steel domes buckle with a deafening ‘ping’. As bubbles rush upwards mermen struggle in the fizzing maelstrom. Ruler p-w-o-n-g. A Boards of Canada-style rusty ident. Standing back, up a ladder, it all falls into a wonderful pattern. The monkey with a spiral tail!
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