VALESE, SAELE - IVIC (2LP)

"NOTON signs Italian-born, Bern-based sound-artist and producer Saele Valese. In 'IVIC', his debut LP, Saele Valese, distills hauntological noise, droning tonal experiments and minimalist rhythms into a series of electro-acoustic-wave ventures written over five years in Berlin, Saas-Fee and Thun. Drawing influences from the psychoacoustic properties of the live album format, IVIC's 11 tracks were mixed and recorded live on DAT cassettes and through DAW experimentation, without the possibility to revise the final recordings. Valese adopted this approach to conceptually propose reconciliations between the irreversibility of the past, and acceptance of its residuals in the present. The track titles themselves follow this pathos, citing the works of the American photographer Francesca Woodman and the poet Sylvia Plath. The inclusion of passages incorporating live sonics and throes of industrialismnso,ton.info contributes to the images of gravity, intimacy and spatiality that the music presented here invokes. In keeping with this imagery, the music possesses a dilated, shuffling rhythmic base, much like the firm traversal of a tanker against a storm of jangling components, and still moments of gloomy sonics alternating with more ravenous upheavals of power electronics." (label info)