нещата в нещата, the new collaborative album between the noise/electronic band orqan and producer and multi-istrumentalist sonno., both founding members of Musica Orizzontale, is a brilliant exploration of the inevitable interaction between sound understood as interaction of rhythms and experimental drone filled noises that are both unusual and novel. The two projects returns with this impro-session recorded live in 2019 an edited during the following months, and we’re thrilled to give you its first full listen and a special, insightful list of top 10 experimental records that inspired the sound of нещата в нещата.
The album shows the core of the two projects which seems melted together to create a new single entity, combining obsessive electronic beats with guitar drones and synths to create abstract patterns where the instruments are drenched in compressed reverbs and blended together with the vinyl samples in a whirlwind of sonic chaos.
Artwork by _0100110101001101 and Andrea Dellapiana.
“We’ve known each other for quite a long time but the three of us never really got the chance to play together before this release (besides a one-time live collaboration between orqan and nemuri no hana, the duo where sonno is playing.” – says Luca from orqan.
Luca and Alekos from sonno. played together for years in screamo band uragano, but they took different paths at some point, with Alekos focusing on sonno and Luca continuing the band, but also starting orqan and joining other projects. At the same time Giacomo (also from orqan) recorded nemuri no hana’s “1920!”, as well as a few uragano releases.
“When Alekos joined uragano again a few years later, it felt pretty natural to think about doing a collaboration with our other projects. – admits Luca.
Asked about their songwriting process, he continues “The usual workflow with orqan is literally just setting up the gear and starting improvising, so we decided to include sonno and basically play as a three piece band. It was not super easy at first, since we never did something like that before, but after a couple of minutes we found our balance and everything flew pretty well.”
“We tried to include elements from both projects like, for example, orqan’s guitar drones & static noises and sonno’s synths & vinyls samples.However we also had few common territories like the weird rhythm patterns and a recognizable sound design (if i can call it like that).”
нещата в нещата is basically a full improvised liveset.
“We almost didn’t cut anything but only chopped it into pieces to create a tracklist.” – shares Luca. “You can find half of that in the streaming version, but the full album is only available in the CD version and in the bandcamp download.”
“We recorded it back in 2019, before the pandemic, but it took a while before we actually decided to finish it and publish it. It was partially mixed live, while we were playing and then we polished it a little in the following months. It was recorded in San Pietro, which was sonno’s house and headquarter for long time but also a really nice diy space for events. A lot of bands have played houseshows over there during the years and we also recorded a few uragano stuff in that place.”
The artwork was a result of a collaboration between Michele (_0100110101001101), who is doing most of orqan’s artwork and Andrea Dellapiana, who did the same for sonno several times. “They started working on some ideas, sending the drafts back and forth via e-mail to each other until the artwork was completed.” – says Luca.
10 EXPERIMENTAL ALBUMS WE LOVE / HAVE INFLUENCED THE SOUND of нещата в нещата
Puce Mary -The Drought
Luca: This album is my personal bible for Death Industrial. Puce Mary throws the listener into this cold and empty post industrial landscape, filled with drony synths and crackling sounds. Occasional bursts of noise and scattered rhythms hit from the sides and anxiety and fear seem the only two possible emotions. Then she starts talking, with her cold, haunting but at the same time irresistible voice.
I think listening to this album is a worthwhile experience. A dark immersion into her inner sonic hell.
Merzbow & Jamie Saft – Merzdub
Luca: It might sounds a little lame to hardcore noise fans but i stwrted to appreciate noise music in the more mainstream way possible: discovering Merzbow.
Alongside the more obvious considerations about his abrasive sound (milestone for the genre), a thing that really fascinate me about Merzbow is his way to collaborate with other projects. While maintaining his signature Japanoise madness, he can really leave space for the other parts to shine and do their best if he’s on the right day. And I have to say it’s not an easy job when you have that really harsh tone on your side. In his huge discography sometimes it worked better than others, but I think in this case it works really well, with the two artists putting the best of themselves on the table to create a strong and unique sound. For those who don’t know, Jamie Saft is a keyboardist and multi instrumentalist well known for his uge discography and tons of collaborations, including several ones with John Zorn.
The entire album is a psychedelic journey into this weird realm made of disorienting dub and downtempo noise electronics. I literally studied and analyzed it before recording нещата в нещата and I think you can hear that.
33EMYBW – Arthropods
Luca: Possibly the first “Deconstructed Club” music I’ve ever listened to paying attention to what was happening.
This dark electronic album fuses new IDM style with Footwork rhythms, adding a lot of folkloristic percussions and metallic weird sounds. It’s literally dance music for aliens or Arthropods and I think she has a really distinct sound that makes all her works really recognizable. It’s also the album that led me into the rising experimental electronic scene in China, which is really vast and interesting. (Luca, orqan)
S280F – 28
Luca: That’s one of my most recent discoveries in weird experimental music. I could talk for hours about i8i, the enigmatic multidisciplinary collective based in L.A., well known for their really weird sound design, more than intense live performance and incredible and cinematic visual works. S280F is part of the core of the collective and her music it’s just something you’d probably never heard. Slow ambient piano melodies, movie-like sound design, hi-tech eco grime moments and a lot of really creepy field recording. The whole album it’s like being trapped in an Alien or Lynch movie but with a better soundtrack.
Unit Moebius – Acid Planet 6
Giacomo: Maybe not experimental in the usual sense of the term, but the Den Haag sound (before the foundation of Bunker Records) to me is an expression of something people was ashamed to show to the crowd: raw sounds, obsessive rhythms and few, possibly bad instruments sounding bad. That’s why I mention it as experimental.
Not the first one that sounded like that but the first I fell in love with.
Acme – Untitled 7” Demo
Giacomo (orqan): One of the most extreme records ever made. Hardcore meets metal in a way that no one didn’t do before and also influencing the most extreme powerviolence/emoviolence records. Seminal for both metal and hardcore.
Volta -Remap
Giacomo: Friends that play chaos in an extremely ordered way. All tracks were recorded live. Frenzy madness, a lot of distortion and a post genre that has yet to be defined.
Devon Hendryx – THE GHOST ~ POP TAPE
Alekos (sonno.): JPEGmafia before he became JPEGmafia, right after taking part in the Afghanistan war and during a period in Japan, Peggy wrote the most beautiful and absurd pop album ever made.
Burial – Subtemple / Beachfires
Alekos (sonno.): When everybody was calling loudly his comeback with a full album (and possibly a “dance- oriented” ones), Burial shot two beautiful ambient double singles in a row, displacing everyone. This one is the second one.
Ryoji Ikeja – Test Pattern
Alekos (sonno.): I never been a huge noise fan, i always liked easy and squared structures in music. But if noise would have all been like that, I’d only listen to that genre.
