Featuring three of the brightest and boldest sonic tinkerers in modern experimental music, 'Nuvole' is the debut collaboration between Robert Donne (Labradford, Anjou, Breadwinner, and Aix Em Klemm with Stars of the Lid's Adam Wiltzie), The OO-Ray (Ted Laderas), and Stephen Vitiello (12k, Room40, Sub Rosa). Broken out into two sidelong parts, 'Nuvole' finds the trio charting pitch black reveries masked by deep, elongated shadows and stashed down alluringly anonymous corridors.
"Nuvole 1" drifts in a distantly kosmische haze of elusive emotion, urged along by subtly throbbing low-ends, sustained cello drones, and micro-tonal ephemera. Vague scenes take shape and dissolve from moment to moment in an sort of lucid dream that's simultaneously comforting and haunting. The A-side ends in a flowing retreat of heaving, lamentful tones, leaving things in an air of impossible irresolution and warm, open-ended hope.
'Nuvole' picks back up with "Nuvole 2," an extended, slow-motion traipse through scorched terrain and frostbitten color. Laderas' strained cello creeps through space like a hobbled but hopeful journeyman, spiritually akin to Tony Conrad's virtuous violin. Elsewhere, Donne and Vitiello perform grimly heady experiments that reach the deepest corners of dark and lightly abrasive sound. As the set comes to a close, the cadre dissolves into a shapeless mix of blown-out dub and droning post-industrial feedback.
credits
released December 14, 2015
Robert Donne
Stephen Vitiello
The OO-Ray (Ted Laderas)
A combination of looping, spacial effects, and modular synthesis turns modern classical sounds into submerged, haunting ambient. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 20, 2024
Such a wonderful record... gorgeously recorded, lovingly crafted, and tastefully played. Sets a really nice, cozy vibe, a bit like an auditory fireplace to warm your soul. ~ DJ Megasoup (Selaroda) ~