claudio rocchetti: labirinto verticale

The latest work, after six years of silence, from Italian berlin-based composer, performer and publisher (Black Letter Press) Claudio Rocchetti, and a welcomed return on the Die Schachtel imprint after the brilliant Another Piece of Teenage Wildlife (2008), Labirinto Verticale (Vertical Maze) takes its origin from the four years long collaboration of Rocchetti with the Parma-based Fondazione Lenz, a contemporary theater research collective/organization. Immersed in their very fertile milieu, inspired by the writings of Hölderlin and Calderon de la Barca, and orbiting around the concepts of memory, sedimentation, presence/absence, Rocchetti produced several hours of music, a selection of which is collected in this album, that marks the n.5 in the internationally acclaimed Die Schachtel's series Decay Music, perfectly fitting its mission, which is to explore the more "intangible", "decomposing" (in a re-generative sense of the term) borders between experimental sound and "proper" music with a special focus on the more interesting experiences of the contemporary Italian scene. For sure the series of delicate, eerie pieces that composes Rocchetti's Vertical Maze are of an intangible, almost "phantasmic" quality (in Rocchetti's words), a sort of alchemic "opera al nero" characterized by a ghostly use of fragments of the human voice, that surfaces in a subtle maelstrom of otherworldly sounds, created, manipulated and decomposed with the use of cassette tapes, re-recording sessions reminiscent of Alvin Lucier's "I am Sitting in a Room" masterpiece of sonic refractions, feedbacks, sounds either found or collected during the rehearsals or the theatrical workshops and shows, and -- as a finishing touch -- Rocchetti's own voice used to imitate artificial sounds or instruments and further re-mixed in a game of sonic mirrors that transports the listener in a completely new concept of melancholia, hauntology and at times on the verge of discomfort, managing anyway to remain in the space of a gratifying and accessible listening experience. Silver-silkscreened deep black cardboard with a crux-shaped maze; silkscreened clear plastic sleeve with "alchemic" custom lettering designed by Bruno Stucchi; edition of 300.