ANACLETO VITOLO - Parallels

AVSA is the new electroacoustic project from Campanian musician Anacleto Vitolo, who had already recorded the album "Zolfo" back in 2016 together with Gianluca Favaron. "Parallels" carries on down the path of extreme sonic experimentation that blends musique concrète and electronics, this time paired with a greater degree of manipulation of traditional instruments' sound.

This time the collaboration is with Sergio Albano – who provides all the sound sources (guitar, synth, objects) – while Anacleto Vitolo handles the processing and manipulation of the pre-existing sounds. The result is claustrophobic and unsettling, locked in a constant conflict between concrete noise-making and sheer sonic weight. It's precisely this latter element that gives "Parallels" an identity of its own, setting it apart from the Italian underground scene tied to experimental electronic music.

Musique concrète and manipulated guitar that, in brief passages of "Paradox 1", recall the wild Texan psychedelia of Red Krayola's masterpiece "The Parable Of Arable Land", among the pioneers of the fusion between avant-garde and rock instrumentation. But it's later on that - almost without realizing it - the album arrives at a maximalist sonic grandeur in the style of Glenn Branca, recalling the power of latter-day Swans, as if Michael Gira had picked up a synth. That's exactly what the ending of "Plasma" is: an accumulation of decibels so powerful and enveloping that it becomes cathartic. Partially similar but with a more cosmic approach is "Interception", almost Schulze-esque at the start but gradually saturating in intensity.

As in the previous "Zolfo", there seems to be no light in the worlds sketched out by Vitolo and Albano; even in the most imposing, cinematic moments, it feels like we're facing the dark, unsettling images of a spaceship lost in deep space.

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03/11/2017