FAUSTO BALBO - Login

We last left him paired up with Andrea Marutti ("Detrimental Dialogue"), the two of them duetting deftly on a dense, multifaceted piece of analog speculation. Once again, Fausto Balbo proves himself a skilled musical experimenter, self-taught as so many of the most inquisitive explorers have always been, and ever attentive to the possibilities that sound research can offer to those, of course, inclined to grasp them.

Driven by the tension of pushing past the borders of the imaginary, the musician from Cuneo here sets out to deepen the idea of a journey in which truth (which one? which ones?) and fiction interpenetrate, where it becomes difficult to tell real world and virtual reality apart, leaving us at the mercy of questions that are more unresolved and unresolvable than ever. Building from these premises, "Login" reveals itself as a jumble of inorganic sounds chiseled with mathematical precision, ranging freely from pioneering citationism (Grossi, Schaeffer, Xenakis) to a successful tribute to the kosmische musik of "Walkin' With Klaus" (Schulze, naturally), passing through every sort of auditory hypothesis contemplated in this richly varied setting. Including scattered traces of glitch and modern microelectronics, assembled with taste and full command of the craft.

Amid feverish cybernetic crackles ("Harvester Of Bits"), vintage sci-fi inventions ("Hardmysticmeeting") and dreamlike sequences of industrial-ambient stock ("Fake Reality – Logout"), the tracks are each time threaded through with impalpable filaments, sine waves, noisy fragments, frequency modulations, alien intermittences, synthetic disturbances, and melodic shreds, proof of the great variety of stimuli at play and confirmation of a firm grasp of his own means.

The farewell comes via "Will Future Man Develop A Third Ear?": over seventeen minutes of otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE), designed to wrap us in a dense, hypnotic web that seems to have neither end nor beginning.

A heterogeneous, dynamic texture, dazzling in its expressive mobility and undeniable creativity. A display of strong, distinctive personality in a corner of contemporary music increasingly shackled by the sadly rampant snares of homogenization.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

08/12/2012