TU M’
Monochromes Vol. 1
LINE040
Line 2009
04 Tracks. 64mins16secs

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Rossano Polidoro and Emiliano Romanelli have been at the helm of the multimedia project Tu M’ for over twelve years now, experimenting with music, video and photography for works going from records, released on labels as diverse as Phthalo, Headz, Fällt, Bip-Hop, Dekoder or ERS, to installations in museums and galleries around the world.

One of such projects is Monochromes, which the pair describe as ‘a collection of modular audio and video compositions for two laptops, two mixing boards, two loudspeakers, one video projector, one room’, with the performance revolving around sound and light reverberating across a room. Monochromes Vol. 1, which collects four of the nine compositions documented on the band’s website, focuses solely on the sonic dimension of the project, and offers no real clue as to what the accompanying visuals are, apart for the washed out blue image of the cover, taken from a still of one of the accompanying videos. Yet, the resolutely eerie aspect of the picture, showing the vague outlines of what appear to be a landscape in the distance, resonates through the slow build up of soundscapes that characterises the four tracks collected here.

Shrouded in dense clouds of reverbs, from which vague contours of looped melodies occasionally rise, it is impossible to identify with certainty any of the components used by Tu M’. Occasionally, one could be forgiven for hearing a distant orchestra, a lone organ or a heavily processed wall of guitars, but the composition of the sonic fabric of these pieces is a close guarded secret. What matters here is not so much the content of these as the atmospheric context resulting of the process applied. While Monochrome # 01, #02 and # 03 rely on fairly clear melodic themes, which, developed over their respective course, slowly build up layers to show increased relief, the thirty minute epic Monochrome # 04, with its long overlapping drones, is totally devoid of any recognisable musical feature, and instead accentuates greatly on the purely textural aspect of the work.

Recorded live over the course of two different performances, Monochromes Vol. 1 is a fascinating journey through particularly dense and enigmatic soundscapes. With the visual side of the project removed, it is difficult to evaluate it in full, yet the four compositions presented here actually work particularly well as stand-alone ambient pieces.

4.2/5

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