(Note: I advice to listen to this record on a silent environment, although listening to it with everyday sounds in the back -voices and office sounds in general-, is also an interesting experience)
Luigi Russolo, was a great Italian artist and sound art pioneer, who developed his work through painting, poetry and later sound. He is well known for building noise-making devices and mainly for his writing pieces about sound and music.
Russolo (alongside all the Italian futurists) is considered one of the pioneers of electroacoustic music and sound art, and today when sound experimentation has become an enormous common place for artists and musicians, his work is as valid as it was 93 years ago. On his "L'Arte de Rumori" manifesto, published on 1913, Russolo said:
"At first the art of music sought and achieved purity, limpidity and sweetness of sound. Then different sounds were amalgamated, care being taken, however, to caress the ear with gentle harmonies. Today music, as it becomes continually more complicated, strives to amalgamate the most dissonant, strange and harsh sounds. In this way we come ever closer to noise-sound.
This musical evolution is paralleled by the multipication of machines, which collaborate with man on every front. Not only in the roaring atmosphere of major cities, but in the country too, which until yesterday was totally silent, the machine today has created such a variety and rivalry of noises that pure sound, in its exiguity and monotony, no longer arouses any feeling. "
Like Russolo, Richard Garet, comes from a painting background, and his work is a mixture of machine-like and environmental sounds that blend greatly into an intense and yet subtle line.
Intrinsic Motions is the first solo release of Richard Garet on Nonvisualobjects (the label created by Heribert Friedl and Raphael Moser) who have previously released material by Richard Chartier, Heribert Friedl and Steve Roden among others, and it's clearly one of finest and more carefully constructed records that I have had the pleasure to listen in a while.
The definition of "awareness' on www.wikipedia.com is:
"In biological psychology, awareness describes a human or animal's perception and cognitive reaction to a condition or event. Awareness does not necessarily imply understanding, just an ability to be conscious of, feel or perceive.
...Awareness may be focused on an internal state, such as a visceral feeling, or on external events by way of sensory perception. Awareness provides the raw material from which animals develop qualia, or subjective ideas about their experience."
Intrinsic Motions is such a subtle and austere construction, that it barely meets your awareness radio, but the sounds are so involving and the structures are so beautifully placed in time, that your attention and focus simply begin to follow the events that are acoustically suggested through 56 minutes.
Being aware is something that goes beyond our thoughts and emotions, awareness is a place where we contemplate and, like children, feel amused with our surroundings and whatever happens there.
This is exactly what occurs with Intrinsic Motions, one of my favorite records of 2006 and one of the most interesting and intriguing experiences that I have had in a while. |
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