ANDREA FERRARIS & MATTEO UGGERI WITH MUJIKA EASEL & ANDREA SERRAPIGLIO
Autumn Is Coming, We’re All In Slow Motion
HB20
Hibernate Recordings 2010
08 Tracks. 54mins44secs

Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

This album is the fruit of the meeting of two artists with substantial pedigrees in experimental music. Andrea Ferraris learnt his trade in various hardcore outfits during the nineties before moving towards more experimental forms of electronic and electro-acoustic music, while Matteo Uggeri has been active with various collaborative projects ranging from noise and post industrial to field recordings-infused melodic electronica since the mid nineties. The pair met after working on a series of collaborative projects led by Maurizio Bianchi and Andrea Marutti, and decided to work on a collaborative project of their own. The pair are here joined by Japanese musician Mujika Easel, who provides occasional piano and vocals, and Italian sound artist Andrea Serrapiglio, who plays cello, and with whom Ferraris has previously collaborated as part of experimental quartet Airchamber 3.

The album combines field recordings, acoustic instrumentation in both raw and processed forms, and electronics into a series of luxurious sonic vignettes where voices, shimmering melodic touches and environmental noises fill the space in all sorts of combinations. While the album features eight distinct pieces, Autumn really works over its whole length, the various compositions primarily serving its overall narrative. The track titles are resolutely kept as descriptive of the field recordings used as possible, or so one is led to think at least, in a move echoing the clinical denominations of early musique concrète works, yet they also contribute to setting the stage for each one of the pieces and giving them a context within the complete work. On Whispers, Scream And Steps In A Library, Disables Playing With Bagatelle for instance, it is exactly what serves as backdrop to a delicate acoustic guitar motif, the music remaining for the most part entirely incidental. This is true of the entire record, to the point where, when Easel adds wordless vocals to a piece, as is the case on Steps On Leaves, Kids On Skateboard, Steps In The Mud, Windscreen-wiper, A Walk Through The Snow or Friend Sleeping, People Swimming In The Pool, Doors, Workout And Water Bottles, they appear more to be part of the layer of environmental noises rather than of the music itself. It is as if Ferraris and Uggeri had taken entire film sequences, stripping them of all visual element to only retain their auditive aspect.

Unlike the majority of works using field recordings, doing so primarily as an additive to the music, what Ferraris and Uggeri do is to actively create snapshots of life from fragments of found sounds, applying the same compositional principles to these as others do with notes and instruments. This results in extremely detailed sceneries, crafted with extreme care to mimic real life, yet, as tracks slip into others, with no clear breaks in between, but with definite context changes as the narrative progresses, the composed aesthetic of the whole record becomes apparent for brief moments.

In just under an hour, Andrea Ferraris and Matteo Uggeri, with a discreet helping hand from their two contributors, create a work of epic cinematic proportions, but this is very much epic at miniature level, their wonderful evocative scenes painstakingly recreating life as it probably never quite was. Autumn resembles tilt-shift photography in the way that, through careful placement and context, it makes reality looks like a model of itself. This first collaboration between the two artists is already one of Hibernate’s most fascinating releases to date, and as it is published in a very limited CD run, it should be snapped up before it is sold out.

4.9/5

Andrea Ferraris (MySpace) | Matteo Uggeri | Hibernate Recordings
Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD