SILVIA KASTEL / NINNI MORGIA / GARY SMITH
Brand
(Ultramarine - UM012) LP $18.00
Heavyweight improviser, stereo guitar pioneer, and Aufgehoben guitarist Gary Smith has you covered in the multiple layering, complex grainy textures, dense counterpoint, influences of birdsong department. Fused with this is the guitar of free improv innovator Ninni Morgia, which floats between minimal movements of primordial electronics, pre-war slide blues and Hendrix-esque feedback. La Barbara and Torchia protégé Silvia Kastel’s moaning, screaming and howling alternates with her delayed, bubbling, glitchy or round bass synth. It’s a dense sound for three people -- not just visceral and intense, but articulate and defined, and in some instances very delicate. It’s got the deep taste of fearlessness of tempo, pulse, more conventional musical devices, or pushing to unpredictable extremes. Includes free download card. TEDIUM HOUSE BEST OF 2012
SILVIA KASTEL / NINNI MORGIA / GARY SMITH
Brand II
(l’Esprit de l’Escalier - LELE03) LP $20.00
Free improv by two guitarists renowned for their extended technique work and consistently inventive experimentation, and female electronics vocalist who explores the outer reaches of the voice. Seven rustling matches of self-containment, as if imprisoned inside a Styrofoam-insulated sleeping bag. Electro-chitters and micro-fweent form semi-transparent mosaics on top of the high-res screech of glass tchochtkes melting from the inside out, nth generation birdsong bending in on itself along an event horizon, color-blocked abstractions of mechanical squirrels playing a kalimba, and wolf fetuses horking into a trumpet. With master percussionist sound sculptor Marcello Magliocchi. Includes insert. Edition of 175
BREN’T LEWIIS ENSEMBLE / SILVIA KASTEL / NINNI MORGIA
Fix It Again, Tony
(Butte County Free Music Society - 45) LP $20.00
This first-time collaboration by avatars of the new generation of European improv and blue-haired spazimodo mutants is something of a gloriously awkward thwack marathon of crumbled guitar noise, otherworldly howls, and stuff falling down stairs. The spontaneous recordings, performed in a single 90-minute session, are cut-up, multi-tracked, looped, and reassembled into thirty-two pieces that are more scrambled than the unrealized fears of an acute entomophobe, and, according to Morgia, “sometimes sound like Twin Infinitives chewed by Polyphemus.” Cover art by the amazing Todd Emmert. Edition of 175.
BREN’T LEWIIS ENSEMBLE / SILVIA KASTEL / NINNI MORGIA
Found On Road, Dead
(Butte County Free Music Society - 46) CDR $8.00
A single track, just over sixty minutes long — the companion piece to the quartet's LP Fix It Again, Tony, using the same material from the same session, completely different mix and edit. Covers are hand-cut from discarded rejects rescued at a print shop. Insert has small metallic medallion glued to it. Edition of 50.
JU SUK REET MEATE / SILVIA KASTEL / NINNI MORGIA
Le Puss Puss
(Alt.Vinyl - AV047) LP $22.50
I visitatori penetrate deep US underground culture, locate The Perfect Vibe (old B-movies, sci-fi memorabilia, monuments to trash rock’n’roll, giant mutant cats, loops of The Three Stooges playing on a small TV) and depart with an exit visa stamped with exotica from outer space, 50s tweed amps, upright bass, trumpet, various percussion, all kinds of weird toys.
SILVIA KASTEL / KOMMISSAR HJULER / MAMA BÄR / NINNI MORGIA
Live In Edinburgh
(Ricerca Sonora - RS4) LP $27.00 (Out-of-stock)
The two-part “Jericho” uses a backing tape group-prerecorded in a big theater-like room, a version of the lyrics spoken live onstage, and Mama Bär’s video projections of the four standing against a wall. Hjuler manipulates tape, Mama Bär and Kastel sing the lyrics, Morgia bends, buffs and brushes guitar, and Kastel’s synthesizer growls from within the monster’s belly. Tension, discomfort, love, pain, theater, music, art -- four people immolating themselves for the cause. Silkscreened sleeve. Edition of 200
Prism
(Ultramarine - UM017) 2xLP $24.00 (Out-of-stock)
Upright bassist Parker is one of the last men standing who, according to Derek Bailey, still plays "pure free jazz," while Morgia (Control Unit, The Right Moves, Quivers) here reaches the top-level of avant guitar, his sounds ranging from Stockhausen’s tape experiments to the saxophones of Braxton and Evan Parker. Morgia's alien sound finds an excellent match in Parker's slide whistle and a strange Spanish reed instrument called gralle. During the making of this recording, Parker asserted: “This is the music I have always had in my mind, the music I have been dreaming about. Music that inspires me with visions of colors, like the light reflecting through a prism."
MARCELLO MAGLIOCCHI / NINNI MORGIA
Sound Gates
(Ultramarine - UM009) LP $23.00
Guitarist, sculptor and designer of strange marimba-like instruments (made of found beach stones), litophones, cymbals and huge bells Ninni Morgia accesses infinite guitar timbres (electronic, filtered analog sounds, soothing bowed drones, wild distortion or small, bird-like plucking techniques). Propelled by Marcello Magliocchi's warm acoustic sounds from strings, metal sheets, handmade rattles and tuned drums, the eleven pieces here slowly grow, build up and dynamically move across pure avant garde, early electronica, psychedelic hypnosis and wild free jazz. Includes download card.
SILVIA KASTEL / KOMMISSAR HJULER / MAMA BÄR / NINNI MORGIA
Two Couples
(Ultramarine - UM008) LP $25.00
A fusion of musique concrete, avant-garde, tropical psychedelia, moaning, screaming, free jazz and lots of raw synths recorded by German NO!artists / performers in collaboration with Italian musicians Ninni Morgia (guitar) and Silvia Kastel (synth and voice). Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer are known for their provocative and extreme neo-dada. Ninni Morgia moves in NYC’s improv and free jazz circles, has been heard in psychedelic rock outfit La Otracina, and started the noise rock band White Tornado. Silvia Kastel has studied sound engineering, electronic music, and singing (with Lee Torchia and Joan La Barbara). All four killed it on a UK tour, where they played and recorded at historical sound poetry venue The Morden Tower in Newcastle. Edition of 300. "Tropical... screaming... sounds good. I totally need an eleventh record from these nuts." --Darksmith. TEDIUM HOUSE BEST OF 2011