AA.VV. TRAX - Notterossa/ Rednight

Trax was the project/group/label conceived and coordinated by Vittore Baroni, the late Piermario Ciani and Massimo Giacon, during a period running from 1981 to 1987. The untimely death of Piermario Ciani, in July 2006, has made this retrospective project - impeccably realized by Small Voices, in a splendid poster-sleeve package complete with stickers and postcards - a necessary as well as welcome tribute to the artist from Bertiolo.

So, in plain terms, what was Trax? For younger readers, or for anyone unfamiliar with it, Trax was one of the most important experiences in Italian counterculture, and beyond. Essentially it was a network of people operating according to the methods of the mail art circuit - from which many of Trax's members came - prefiguring, and indeed anticipating, a system of relationships strikingly similar to that of the internet age, of social networks and file sharing in particular. In the words of Nigel Ayers of Nocturnal Emissions, describing how the network worked: "The Trax project worked like this: individual A would record a piece onto cassette, which they then mailed to individual B, who incorporated something else into it using any technique, before sending it on to individual C. The additions could be overdubs, remixes, they could be anything." "Notterossa/Rednight" is one of the most interesting results produced by the collective.

Dedicated to the work of William Burroughs, "Notterossa/Rednight" was conceived in Bertiolo in June '82, when around a hundred artists/musicians were invited to take part in Trax's first convention. The result is a long track of post-industrial collages, overdubs, noise, and remixing of bizarre, unsettling, estranging sounds. Needless to say, this project embodies the best of the conceptual art of that era, using semantic mechanisms such as cut-up and detournement, techniques very much in vogue at the time within post-industrial and plagiarist music and art circuits in particular.

The goal was to experiment with the boundaries between sound and noise, to blend high and low culture, and to create a production that was made, distributed and enjoyed according to anti-commercial mechanisms. All of this was framed within a utopian vision aimed at erasing the distance between audience and artist, or rather between creator and listener.

The Small Voices reissue also includes a second CD, credited to Gianluca Becuzzi, who creates a new version of "Notterossa/Rednight", on one hand remastering Trax's original work (originally released on cassette), and on the other composing a brand new track, freely inspired by the themes of William Burroughs' novel.

An essential document for understanding the evolution of underground cultures in Italy and beyond.

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16/05/2009