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FAME DI VENTO (2024)

ANTS RECORDS #27

triple CD

https://www.antsrecords.com/

for purchase

https://ants4.bandcamp.com/album/fame-di-vento

https://www.soundohm.com/product/fame-di-vento-3cd

Music by Julius Aglinskas, Giorgio Battistelli,Laurence Crane, Jurg Frey, Juste Janulyte,

Mary Jane Leach, Alvin Lucier, Rytis Mazulis,Riccardo Nova, Stefano Pilia, James Tenney,

Tashi Wada

Alighiero Boetti is one of the artists I love more. He had found the center of his world far from Turin, where he was born and raised. Not exactly around the corner. In Afghanistan. He had planted his roots there, starting up a hotel in Kabul as a logical consequence of his wandering artistic itinerary. At a point he split his name into Alighiero&Boetti, thus doing justice to his maniacal obsession with numbers, 2 and especially 11, the twin number. It all adds up. James Tenney had also undergone in the same years the fascination with numbers and oriental philosophies. Critical Band is the manifesto of a method assimilated at the beginning of the 70s that sees the sound at the center of the investigation, with its ambiguity, its microscopic recesses, its linearity. Its power. A concept, like Boetti’s, so pure that it is transmuted into a work. Of art. After his arrival in Venice in the early 1960s and a relative period of crisis, Alvin Lucier seems to have found an unstoppable vein of creativity. In his work, the physical phenomenon turns into a poetic element, translated into a purely musical object. A deeply contemplative approach, aimed at the magic and nature of sound. Characteristics that are also well suited to Mary Jane Leach, one of the most important figures of post-minimalist American music. Tashi Wada, who was a student of Tenney, projects us into a different perspective on the relationship between sounds, regulated by uncommon proportions. In exploring this universe, Wada amazes us with sounds that stimulate rare emotions and produce complex and mysterious vibrations. Riccardo Nova delivered his soul to Indian culture and for many years he has made a choice of life, as well as artistic, that has modified his language, indianizing it. There is no slowness in this music, but a sense of time suspended and radicalized in micro-structures regulated by a superior mathematical law that dominates the piece like an obscure and silent omen only revealed at a closer look. Jürg Frey hypnotizes the listener with a series of imperturbable concentric loops, lost in their wanderings in an unknown dimension of time. The space between the sounds takes on particular importance, an almost architectural value that reveals an attention to positioning and emptiness worthy of a great Zen Master dealing with the setting up of a Japanese garden. Slowness is also one of the distinctive features of Laurence Crane’s poetics: Bobby J. is a clockwork device skillfully constructed to dig into our emotional sphere and lay bare our drives. On the same wavelength is Circulata Melodia by Giorgio Battistelli, an uncanny oasis of reflection and at the same time a wonderful example of the freezing of physical time. I have always considered Lithuania to be one of the most interesting countries to look at in my musical research, both for the richness of its cultural traditions and for the quality and level of extraordinary composers for such a small country. It is an asset/shelter, a magnet for my experiences, always ready to welcome me. Mater LithuaniaJustė Janulytė, Julius Aglinskas and Rytis Mažulis have found an original language that strucked me intimately, right from the beginning. Justė Janulyte’s visual poetics generates a representation that we could define as monochromatic, although the flow within it contains diffuse mobility, as a constantly changing sound spectrum rich in iridescent shades. Julius Aglinskas works on time with his particular technique of de-phasing, creating spectacular moving sound images. My friend Anton Lukoszevieze (who also had the merit of introducing me to his music) declared an interesting relationship between Julius’ work and the photography of Luigi Ghirri. A perfect comparison which brings together the ecstasy, beauty and melancholy common to the two artists. I feel great empathy with Rytis Mažulis’ music, as well as a long familiarity and an intense and wild collaboration. His perception of time is misleading: scales that repeat themselves incessantly invest us with micro-rhythms, displacements, windings, contractions and expansions. His music is a living organism. It pulses with life, it transmutes before our eyes, it surprises us with its pure presence. Gianni Gebbia is a versatile saxophonist and improviser who loves to delve into territories that do not belong to him directly. I asked him to search, with his curiositas, for a common mother tongue. The Sutartinės are simple canons, heart of Lithuanian musical culture. The peasants used to sing them in the villages of the north, on the border with Latvia, and the main purpose was to help weave social relations between the villagers. These canons could be performed with skudučiai, single-note flutes, and taking up this tradition, I elaborated some which I then sent to Gianni to inspire him to improvise with his usual vocabulary. Thanks to this experiment, we arrived to a shared result, confronting each other in unfamiliar territory and taking up an identity challenge, which is the main purpose of this sound journey. At the end of the journey I discovered a record by Stefano Pilia (Spiralis Aurea- Die Schachtel 2020) that made me jump: I couldn’t resist the temptation to include in this record two of his wonderful songs of solitude that seemed particularly suitable for discovering a hidden dimension of time. 

M.Z. 9/11/2022 

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Returning to their dedication to the work of the Italian flutist and multi-instrumentalist, Manuel Zurria, ANTS delivers “Fame di Vento”, a towering 3CD collection of Zurria’s renderings of works by James Tenney, Riccardo Nova, Rytis Mažulis, Stefano Pilia, Justė Janulytė, Alvin Lucier, Mary Jane Leach, Julius Aglinskas, Laurence Crane, Jürg Frey, Giorgio Battistelli, and Tashi Wada.
Roughly belonging to, but pushing well beyond, Zurria’s longstanding investigations into the range and possibilities presented by minimal music, it’s an absolute stunner that centres the flutist in the consciousness as one of the most distinct figures working in experimental music today.

 

 

 

Manuel Zurria
“Fame di vento”

(3CD)

 

Established in 2001, for more than two decades the Rome, Italy, based imprint ANTS ("A New Timeless Sound”) has continuously blow our minds with releases dedicated to illuminating some of the most ambitious and often under-appreciated gestures of experimental sonority, offering special focus to minimalism, sound art, electroacoustic music, via stellar releases by Werner Durand, John White, Amelia Cuni & Alex Mendizabal, Philip Corner, Tom Johnson, Hugh Davies, Luca Miti, and numerous others. Running like a spine through the ANTS catalog is the work of the Italian flutist and multi-instrumentalist Manuel Zurria. Their latest, “Fame di Vento” - an astounding 3CD collection of Zurria’s renderings of works by James Tenney, Rytis Mažulis, Stefano Pilia, Alvin Lucier, Mary Jane Leach, Tashi Wada, and numerous others issued in a triple gatefold cardboard cover (Mini LP style) with a 24-page color booklet with liner notes and interviews by Manuel Zurria and the composers - takes this dedication to a unparalleled scale. Creatively engrossing on numerous fronts, not to mention stunningly beautiful and drawing much needed attention to Zurria’s longstanding and significant contribution to experimental music over the decades, ANTS has done it again!While not explicitly part of the same project, “Fame di Vento”, his latest release via ANTS, can be seen an as extension of the same general line of inquiry, gathering a number of his renderings of the works of James Tenney, Rytis Mažulis, Stefano Pilia, Alvin Lucier, Mary Jane Leach, Tashi Wada, and numerous others, some of which were composed specifically for him. The album is conceived as an idealized homage to the legendary, Italian conceptual artists Alighiero Boetti, a nomad by culture and vocation. In his footsteps, Manuel draws upon diverse cultures, ranging from the Lithuanian mystics to India and Sicily, while incorporating a range of musical tactics - from just-intonation to European-style minimalism - immersing himself in the possibilities presented by each piece and making it his own, regardless of the instrumental destination, creating highly personalised versions via multitracking in the studio. The album's nod to Alighiero Boetti is not without reason. The Italian artist was noted not only for his rethinking of familiar imagery and techniques, but also for his willingness to approach the expressive creative traditions of other cultures (specifically the textiles of Afghanistan, where he lived for many years). Across the album’s three discs, Manuel Zurria can be seen embarking upon a similar project, traversing the work of numerous artists and a diverse number of localities, and in each case rethinking the familiar tropes of minimal composition in his vision. Perhaps most interesting, is the recognition that the totality of these three discs of remarkable compositions, are likely to have been rendered as a distinct narrative arc, rather than as wholly freestanding compositions in their own right, through the presence of three Prelude and three Postlude pieces, threaded intermittently across the album’s length. Across the duration of “Fame di Vento”, Zurria embarks upon fascinating renderings, and in so doing, through the remarkable diversity of the compositional methods within, takes the listener on an endlessly surprising journey through creative sonority and collaboration. Ranging from the constrained approached of Tenney, Janulytė, Lucier, Leach, Crane, Pilia, Wada, and others - each reframing, with elegant simplicity, perspectives on drone, microtonality, and durational tone, to the more complex structures of Nova, Mažulis, and Battistelli, we are immersed in what appear to be a near infinite number of possibilities presented by the humble flute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not unlike, but pushing well beyond, Zurria’s previous explorations of Minimalism, “Fame di Vento” is a truly striking statement by one of the most talented experimental artists currently working in Italy. There isn’t a moment that lets up or disappoints. “Fame di Vento” is issued by ANTS as a beautifully produced 3CD collection, housed in a triple gatefold cardboard cover (Mini LP style) with a 24-page color booklet with liner notes and interviews by Zurria and the composers. Absolutely game-changing and not to be missed.

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Blow Up April 2024 - Gino Dal Soler

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Mario Gamba

Il Manifesto 22 Giugno 2024 - Alias

 

Manuel Zurria, immenso flautista, con una raccolta in 3 CD intitolata Fame di vento (Ants) riprende il suo perenne amore per il minimalismo suonando ben 12 autori, i più noti sono Alvin Lucier e Giorgio Battistelli. Detto un po' sbrigativamente, la sua scelta risulta piuttosto cerebrale. Uno Zurria severo,magistrale e poco conversativo.

Kathodik 

di Marco Paolucci

8 Luglio 2024

 

Nuovo poderoso lavoro del flautista Manuel Zurria, questo triplo Cd uscito nell’anno in corso per la Ants Records. Il lavoro è dedicato all’artista italiano Alighiero Boetti, amatissimo dal nostro per la sua capacità di creare arte, sperimentando le varie esternazioni della materia attraverso il suo essere viaggiatore nomade. Da questo spunto Zurria si esprime in personali interpretazioni di svariati artisti, provenienti da suoni e universi culturali più disparati, proponendo un “melting pot” potente e denso, degno di ascolti attenti e ripetuti per poterne apprenderne al meglio le multiple sfaccettature di senso. Basta premere play sul lettore e si passa da James Tenney, a Riccardo Nova, a Rythis Mažulis, a Alvin Lucier, passando per Stefano Pilia della ‘Spiralis Aurea’, a Giorgio Battistelli, per citarne solo alcuni degli autori “introiettati” musicalmente da Zurria. Che coinvolge il sassonista Gianni Gebbia a sperimentare, leggiamo dal libretto, sulle Surtatinè, semplici canoni, fondamenta della cultura musicale lituana, suonati con flauti a nota singola denominati skudučiai. Questo dialogo in sei parti, due per Cd, costituisce un ideale collegamento che accompagna l’ascoltatore tra le varie sezioni dell’opera.

Voto: 8/10

https://www.kathodik.org/2024/07/08/manuel-zurria-fame-di-vento/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2A-LUac7o51zDu9dLWPybaWpSvzAwHszeiiQeBaNdjlPLhL146r0DGr-M_aem_6E7mA2jo1tp8JksFmLnAsQ

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