Riccardo Sinigaglia, with Gabin Dabiré and Walter Maioli, made up one third of Futuro Antico - one of the most important collaborations to emerge from the 1970’s and 80’s Italian avant-garde. The project, whose name literally translates to ancient future, joined traditional sounds and instrumental from around world, with electronic music - the sonic past, present, and future as one. Recorded shortly after the collective’s most prolific period and released in 1986, while more singular and more idiosyncratic, Sinigaglia’s Riflessi caries these very concerns at its core. Built from field recording, collaged samples, synthesis, and instrumentation - shifting from hypnotic rhythm to radical and displacing structures, it establishes a remarkable link between ancient and non-western musics and efforts emerging from studios like Groupe de Recherches Musicales. A work of staggering rhythm, texture, beauty, Riflessi builds a world with almost no parallel - imbuing electronic music with touch, tactility, and humanity, while sacrificing none its challenges and intellectual heights. Rattling sonorous wonder, emerging for the first time on any format since its original pressing, before us is a historic moment - a lost piece of the puzzle of the wondrous Italian avant-garde.
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
Less a solo act than a one-man megalith, Khôra builds impressive experimental soundscapes from modular synths, flutes, harps, and more. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 19, 2020
Boundless imagination, and (what has to be) delight. Sounds somehow immensely personal, yet intended to be shared with all. A work of a creative giant. Darkest Wonder
“With Julius, he was based in repetition, but here was a spirit of openness and improvisation. His scores, if they were written out that way, were often like jazz scores. He loved multiplying instruments – four pianos, ten cellos – so there was a real feeling of the presence of the instrument, not just using an instrument in some kind of equation, as a means to an end.” ~ Mary Jane Leach
Enough said. pt