FARAVELLIRATTI
Lieu
BM022
Boring Machines/Coriolis Sounds 2010
06 Tracks. 38mins02secs

Issued conjointly by Boring Machines (Italy) and Coriolis Sounds (France), Lieu is the first album by Italian artists Nicola Ratti (electric guitar) and Attila Faravelli (computers). The pair have developed their collaborative work from live performances during which their music is filtered through prepared speakers and tape recorders. While Ratti has already released a number of records, either solo efforts or as part of electro-acoustic duo Bellows and experimental pop/rock outfit Ronin, Faravelli has worked extensively for theatre, radio and cinema before releasing his debut album, Underneath The Surface, on Die Schachtel last year.

As FaravelliRatti, they explore a world with takes shape beyond their respective work, blending elements of rock and electro-acoustic into a series of textured atmospheric soundscapes. While the concept of prepared speakers remains pretty vague, it is key to their collaborative work. Their music, created from segments of electric guitars and electronic textures, is played through strategically placed speakers, allowing Faravelli and Ratti to alter the collective resonance of their amplification system. The result is rather dreamy and fluid, articulated around delicate guitar touches and motifs, either left fairly untouched or rendered through effects and delays, which are then looped, processed and developed into atmospheric constructions.

The tone of the pair’s compositions varies greatly, ranging from dense and ethereal on opening piece At Noon, with its elegant swathes of delayed guitars and soft motifs applied on top, and slightly rugged shapes and noises of And Lacrosse Sticks to the utterly rounded and pastoral textures of I’ve Witnessed or Every September, the slithering dub echoes and fragmented layers of Bows And Arrows or the heavy sound processing of miniature piece The Spectacle. These are however unified by a singular process, feeding on space and how the various elements fill it. Part of the concept of the music of FaravelliRatti is based on the position and use of speakers. In the context of an album however, the relative lack of spatial depth inherent to most recorded music can only take away from the intended effect. Yet, there is a lot of space to be found within the music itself, even when the pair build dense layers of sound and noise. This gives Lieu an incredible level of fluidity, which allows the pair to experiment with textural moments of explore the complexity of a melody with equal ease.

Attila Faravelli and Nicola Ratti have chosen an artistic form which can only really work as part of an installation, yet, they work with the intrinsic textural aspect of their music to develop wonderful sonic vignettes, and have created with Lieu a rather beautiful and dreamy collection.

4.1/5

Attila Faravelli (MySpace) | Nicola Ratti | Boring Machines | Coriolis Sounds