THING
by Kelados I Federico Balducci & fourthousandblackbirds I Luca Sciarratta I Quanio5
In 2022, attenuation circuit starts a new series of four-way split albums called THING. The aim is to provide a medium for exchange and presentation of a great variety of artists. As each artist spreads the copies to their network, listeners also get to know the other artists featured on the same disc. The title references the fact that the CDs are physical objects – things! – but also refers to the 'thing' or 'ding' in old Norse and other Germanic languages, which designates the place of a popular assembly or the assembly itself and thus alludes to the 'meeting-place' character of the albums on (or around) which the four artists and their audiences meet, if only virtually.
Issue number five in the THING series, composed as it is by five different artists/projects, perhaps feels even more like a collective composition (as opposed to compilation) than its predecessors. The overarching structure of the first two parts/tracks pits glitchy microrhythms against laminar drone textures until, in part three, the drone canvas is removed and the rhythmic artefacts find themselves suspended in a silent space. But the echoes they leave behind quite quickly coagulate into new masses of sound, which, in part four, start spinning at a very high tempo, a beat so fast that it almost blurs itself into a drone. The titles given to the pieces by their composers offer a multitude of ways for 'making sense' ot the sonic narrative of this album, and every listener may find their own interpretation. But whichever path one chooses, in many ways the album works like its cover. At first glance, the image on the sleeve looks like an abstract monochrome divided into two unequal parts. But at closer inspection it turns out that it's actually a landscape, rather flat and barren and devoid of humans. But humans have left their traces (in the form of fences), just like the sounds on the album suggest the invisible traces – radiation, pollution, radio waves … - that humans will have left on Earth even after they themselves will have disappeared.
ACU 1005
factory-produced CDr in cardboard sleeve
Released in 2022
limited to 100 copies
price: 7.00 EUR (excl. postage)
attenuation circuit ° ACUF 1005 ° 2022
attenuationcircuit.de ° attenuation-circuit@web.de
photos by Dan Penschuck (feindesign.de)
design by EMERGE
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kelados.bandcamp.com
federicobalducci7.bandcamp.com
soundcloud.com/fourthousandblackbirds
lucasciarratta.com
discogs.com/artist/3789846-Quanio5
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the THING series is open for submissions
please check details here:
emerge.bandcamp.com/album/open-call-thing-4-way-split-cd-series
Also available here: http://www.discogs.com/seller/dependenz?sort=price&sort_order=asc&q=attenuation+circuit&st
BAD ALCHEMY
Das fünfte THING (ACUF 1005, Cdr) splittet mit Kelados – eigentlich Matus Fabian in Bratislava - einen, der sich mit 'Getöse, lautes Geschrei, helles Rauschen oder Klingen' griechisch getauft hat. Mit 'Memories Denied' strebt er mit melancholisch dunklem Summton gegen die Brandung des Vergessens zurück in die schwarze Ursuppe, aus der wir eins hervor reptilten. Der puertorikanische Gitarrist Federico Balducci, der auf Französisch mit den Elementen jongliert und mit 'Entäußerung' und 'Die Brücke' deutsch daherkam, hat sich für 'Behemoth' mit fourthousandblackbirds in Montréal verbunden – wie auch schon bei „Anta Odeli Uta Ep“ oder ihrem durch Bataille inspirierten Track 'A Story of Rats'. Pulsende Sekunden, rhythmisch flirrendes Sirren und Schrillen und vages Dröhnen suggerieren einen Traumzustand oder künstlichen Schlaf auf der Intensivstation. Krähen schrein, so etwas wie Stimmen und mit pulsendem Andrang etwas Alarmierendes drängen sich ins UBIK-Bewusstsein. Luca Sciarratta, der bei „Derivata Distante“ (BA 114) sich durch 'Gitarrenschlamm' und schwefelgelbe, eisenhaltige Klanglandschaften furchte, lässt bei 'An alluring tendency' seine Gitarre raue kleine Wellen beben. Dunkles Grollen und helle, schnelle Zitterspuren schaffen oszillierend Raum. Ist Raum nicht die offene Fläche unter dem Baum, wo die germanischen Herzöge ihre Mannen versammelten, mit andern Worten: das Thing? Zuletzt scheint Quanio5 als schon in den 80ern aktiv gewesener Veteran mit ''Moral's Moral' nach der zweifelhaften Moral von der Geschichte zu fragen. Mit einer schnellen Flatterwelle, sirrend pulsierendem Impulsandrang in ebenfalls alarmierender Oszillation, emsiger Punktierung in wechselnder Tönung, in nahezu stimmlicher Erregung auf eeee, mit pfeifenden Trillern, quecksilbrigem Sprudeln. Das Sirren geht durch die Decke, eine Sopranillusion tonleitert, Pixel beprickeln die Ebene, die Impulse scheinen zu 'sprechen', Musik machen sie allemal. Die Aliens können kommen, oder waren sie schon da?
http://badalchemy.de/
VITAL WEEKLY
As 'Thing' is a series without numbers, I decided not to bother even thinking about how many different ones there are but dive right in. Four artists, four pieces, that's the idea. Well, as we will see, five artists. I only heard of one of them. Kelados opens the proceedings here with a fine, dark and atmospheric piece of music. Drones galore made with sounds and instruments unknown, and, although never all too radically offering something we haven't heard before, I thought this was a nice and thoughtful shimmering piece of music. The second piece is by two artists, Federico Balducci and fourththousandblackbirds. A mysterious piece of bleeps on one side, and some equally mysterious drones from processed field recordings. It starts as an interesting piece of music, but I must admit that I found fourteen minutes a bit too much in the end. There wasn't enough variety within the minimalist approach. Luca Sciarratta is the only musician I have heard of before. He has two releases on Attenuation Circuit (see Vital Weekly 1333). He's a guitarist, playing prepared guitar and electronics. His 'An Alluring Tendency' is quite a dark piece of music of muffled and muted tones that somehow lacks tension. Quanio5's 'Moral's Morals' is an electronic piece with minimal synth. A bit ambient, but with all the modules bubbling not precisely the sort of music to put in an altered state. It's not bad, not great, either. Introductions all around, but with a learning curve ahead. Only Kelados was the one that I made a mental note ('must hear more) of.
http://www.vitalweekly.net/1358.html
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