"Ghost System" was originally conceived by Simon Balestrazzi as a a sort of personal "Discreet Music", but his long time fascination with Earle Brown 1954 masterpiece, "Folio and Four Systems", brought this project to a different evolution.
< In early autumn 2013, while stuck in my old and empty family house in the foggy surroundings of Parma, I was planning to work on a series of background compositions related to time and memories. That's when Brown's preface to the score sprang to my mind. But how could I pay homage to this composition without attempting to give my interpretation of it ? >
Thus this new album presents Balestrazzi's own heretical take on indeterminacy, bringing to an extreme the process in a twisted and eccentric way. Instead of somehow following the graphic score, this was used as a stencil, a blueprint to obtain random selections, values, frequency ranges, etc. Some sections from existing recordings of "Four Systems" were excerpted and quite a few processes were operated, from extreme time stretching to the convolution of the samples with a random selection of his own sounds (tsymbaly, gongs, amplified objects)
But the final long composition, divided in 7 parts, ended sounding far from a work based on sampling. Instead, enriched by a 15 years collection of field recordings, its haunted atmospheres and foggy droning soundscapes keep resonating as if coming from a well hidden otherworldly universe.
credits
released May 20, 2016
Simon Balestrazzi is an electronic/electroacoustic composer and sound artist active since the the late '70s.
In 1981 he co-founded T.A.C. (Tomografia Assiale Computerizzata), a long-lived and outstanding Italian band operating on the border between experimental music and leftfield rock and considered between the leading ensembles of italian post-industrial scene.
He's currently working as a solo artist as well as with experimental duos Dream Weapon Ritual (with Monica Serra), Candor Chasma (with Corrado Altieri), Hidden Reverse (with Massimo Olla), Sarang (with Enrico Marani) and the improv ensemble A Sphere Of Simple Green (with acoustic bass player Adriano Orrù and pianist Silvia Corda).
He has so far performed live or recorded with many musicians and groups, foremost among them: Gianluca Becuzzi, Bron Y Aur, Fabio Cerina, Paulo Chagas, Compoundead, Sylvie Courvoisier, Deison, Max Eastley, Andrea 'Ics' Ferraris, Forbici Di Manitù, Henning Frimann, Fuzz Orchestra, Hermetic Brotherhood Of Lux-or, Tim Hodgkinson, Dalila Kayros, M.S. Miroslaw, Ikue Mori, Clara Murtas, Phill Niblock, Noisedelik, Victor Nubla, Alessandro Olla, Francesco Paladino, Plasma Expander, Maja Ratkje, Paolo Sanna, Damo Suzuki, TH26, Uncodified, VipCancro and Z’EV.
The 17 mindbending songs on this compilation represent minimalist experimental music at its best, a collage of blips and static. Bandcamp New & Notable Dec 3, 2022
The first release on Cacophonous Revival, from experimentalist Samuel Goff, uses avant-garde approaches to get at personal narratives. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 4, 2020