G. SCHIAFF1NI / M. IANNACC0NE - MEMO FR0M (1979)

We inch closer to completing our collection of Italian DIVerso posts. Here is the 11th of 12 releases from the Cramps label in the late 1970s (this is #12 in the series, but we have not been posting them in order).

This is a brass and percussion duet session of what seems mostly true free improv... a warm, charming dialogue of minimal, spacious gestures and textures, with moments of unpredictable cross-chatter and direct argument arising from time to time. The series' unique, intimate tone remains safely in place here. Our dream of fully assembling and posting the complete collection is close at hand.

Here...

M4R1O SCH1AN0 - AND H1S ALL ST4RS (1978)

We listened to this today: our 10th of the 12 DIVerso Series. This is an all-star big band that includes only Schiano on his sax with subtle synths by a Mr. F. De Sanctis--part lounge act, part dancehall gig--that soars and stumbles, swings, slumps and shrieks. We do love pursuing the collection of a good, rare series.

Keeping the dream alive...

DEMETR10 STRAT0S - METR0D0RA (1976)

Stratos pulls the human range of vocal techniques through a blackhole in this two-suite series of sound poetry studies and compositions. This, our ninth of twelve DIVerso posts, finds its perfect context for aural consumption in the series of illness-inspired posts we give you today, as the listener who downloads this gem will discover. There is some discomfort, a bit of pain, moments of respite, and ultimately a purge and cleansing of the Four Humors.

Restorative Dreaming...

STEVE L4CY - STRAWS (1977)

Our eighth DIVerso entry (out of twelve) finds Lacy playing multi-part/layer soprano works and tapes, and recorded in the wonderful DIVerso way...the incredible sense of acoustic tonality (and space) of the series thus far.

Check here to scroll back through the series...

In the meantime, chew your pillow listening to this...

JESÚS V1LLA-R0JO - CLAR1NETTISS1MO (1976)

We'll keep the DIVerso journey going with #4 (our seventh selection), an offering of clarinet skronk by this Spanish composer and woodwind specialist. Typically cataloged in the realm of classical concert music, the work--composed as it may be--refuses to settle into any easily recognizable sense of structure. Villa-Rojo coaxes all possible sonic potential out of the object called a clarinet, including perhaps its demons.

Unsettling,
some dreams are...

ARZA ANA1AK - TXALAPARTA '75 IR41LA (1975)

The dreamlife of the collector: the addictive, unquenchable desire for the complete, a total archive, a museum of the rare. Our quest for DIVerso albums supplies the requisite fix--the sixth in the series. Follow links here to scroll back through the entries.

This is the album that kicked it all off. A Basque duo conducting serialist, ethno-folk inspired percussion experiments on the txalaparta that are at once simple, wonky, maddening, meditative and beautiful. Stark yet warm, patently "acoustic".... This is eminently dreamy trance music made from regular and irregular tapping systems, and almost non-existent melodic/tonal variation.

Dream while collection dreaming here...

DEREK B41LEY - IMPROVISATION (1975)

OWOD's fifth DIVerso posting finds Mr. Bailey at, perhaps, his pluckiest, scrambliest best. For some of us, only the most disjointed of pacing, atonal of sounds and structureless of ramblings can provide respite from the tedium of everyday noise, or the incessant churning of the brain. This album--a masterclass on dexterous fingerwork--is dreamsound for those of us.

CHR1ST1NA KUB1SCH / F4BR1ZIO PLES51 - TEMP0 L1QUID0 (1979)

And today in the mail... another installment of DIVerso fetishism, our fourth. A flirtatious meeting of Italian minimalism and deutsch kunsthalle sound art: a fluxus tinged techno-kosmische. Here the lucid dream state meets cyclical, crunchy, recurring thoughts--a sonic enactment of the kind of churning brain syndrome that can strike the insomniac..turning in bed, almost asleep, when those thoughts begin to run in circles. One of my favorites of the series.

Neither sleeping nor awake, neither dreaming nor conscious...but all of them.

P4TRIZ10 F4R1SELLI - ANTR0POF4G1A (1977)

A band-mate of Tofani in Area. And the third of our DIVerso offerings. I'm loving the series. I love collections. The scrambling, chaotic solo works on this album do not overtly suggest the anthropophagia invoked by the title: I am not sure what culture is being cannibalized here, let alone digested and excreted. It would seem genre, or perhaps sound itself, may be the victim. Nonetheless, if you are like me--someone who can only produce delta waves from generally unfamiliar sounds (and someone who is fascinated with Italy '77)--you will find in this album a beautiful source of sonic estrangement.

Serial dreamer...

PAOLO T0FANI - INDCAZIONE (1977)

Our second DIVerso series offering comes from this Florentine guitarist/composer. With this album, the artist who had been best known as part of the prog unit, Area, moved into something far more personal--and eccentric. Apparently Tofani mounted an EMS prototype synth to his Les Paul guitar to generate the sound-fields here. Not an easy dream, but remember that Tofani, based on this album, was included on the Nurse with Wound List. Songs "Tung Tse Mao" and the spoken work "Indicazione" are favorites. As the story goes, Tofani entered a Hare Krishna community not too long after this release.

Dream dreams....

FERNAND0 GR1LL0 - FLUV1NE (1976)

Four sublimesolo bass works played by the man coined "the Buddha of the contrabass" by Karlheinz Stockhausen. Ambient from the calm to the storm.

Dream...