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. Continue Reading »

NICOLA RATTI
From The Desert Came Saltwater
ANTICIPATE005
Anticipate Recordings 2008
06 tracks. 44mins42secs

What most people know about Nicola Ratti could be written on the back of a postcard. The former guitarist of the now defunct Pin Pin Sugar is not exactly a household name, although work with Giuseppe Ielasi on 2007’s well-regarded Bellows will have gone some way to establishing him with a wider audience. He has also collaborated with Andrea Belfi, and is today a guitarist with underground Italian instrumentalists Ronin. But obscurity is probably not something that would worry someone like Ratti. After all, his sound virtually invites it. Hushed guitars played at half-pace on studied, earnest compositions are not easily going to grab the attention of the average listener. But this is the point, it seems, with his music, and with From The Desert Came Saltwater in particular. It is the sound of music stripped of verbosity and excess, a sound that in doing very little very slowly manages to lure its way insidiously into perception. Continue Reading »