bellows: rustl

Italian electro-acoustic maestros Giuseppe Ielasi and Nicola Ratti aka Bellows serve up an engrossing, labyrinthine LP of freeform concrète dub. Rustl is Bellows' fourth side, following a critically acclaimed trio of albums released since 2007 for Entr'acte, Planam and Kning Disc, and also follows Boomkat Editions' last release, by another Milanese artist, Lorenzo Senni, which was coincidentally also mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi (BKEDIT 010LP). In a slight change from Bellows' usual working method, Rustl represents a nimbly frayed sound much closer to what they do in a live situation. Using a few cassette players with tape loops animated by a couple of effects and recorded direct to two-track tape with no overdubs or mixing, they improvise ten viscous, amorphous plays framed by deep, bubbling subs, skittish percussions, and wheezing ferric abstractions with the most uncanny grasp of dub space. Their haptic, small sounds reveal tiny new sleights and discordant quarks with every listen, offering something more akin to a petri dish of live, kinetic cultures than the more fixed forms of their previous slabs. RIYL Senufo Editions, Alva Noto, Actress, Pole, Bernard Parmegiani. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Edition of 300.