Giappone come fulcro di partenza o d’arrivo di un ascetico percorso di composizione sonora; dalle simboliche installazioni elettroacustiche di Enso, legate all’ideogramma giapponese, alla simbiotica unione con l’architettura contemporanea. Architettura come spazio di lettura, dunque, per il progetto del giovane compositore sound-artist Luigi Turra, formato 3”, quasi a voler contenere o trattenere nella leggerezza delle minimali linee raffinate dell’imballaggio la materica dialettica della forma compositiva. Come Karlheinz Stockhausen percepiva una camera esagonale come forma in cui comporre, Turra trova nel “Vitra Seminar House” di Tadao Ando lo spazio in cui far dialogare la sua arte. Uno spazio che da conteni- tore diventa contenuto di un’unica traccia - poco meno di una ventina di minuti - di rarefazioni sottili e pulviscoli sonori, nel la quale la “condizione del luogo” diventa strumento necessario ed adatto per comporre. L’edificio, immerso in una zona boscosa, parzialmente interrato, si snoda tra forme geometriche semplici di cerchi e quadrati, materici pieni e vuoti di vetro e cemento che si aprono e a tratti circoscrivono la natura in piccoli cortili interni che enfatizzano il silenzio e ne accentuano l’austerità spaziale. Il “silenzio” della forma moderna diventa rarefatto palcoscenico di una danza astrattadell’assenza, un ovattato velo elettroacustico alla ricerca elegante della privazione sonora. Una privazione sonora ai limiti dello stato fisico, dove la muratura è confine di un territorio che si nega al caotico mondo esterno, dove sorgenti sonore si scontrano, si sdoppiano, rimbombano, si fondono e scompaiono delineando chiaramente i limiti spaziali di un silenzio simbolicamente lacerato (dal trascinarsi grezzo di una pietra). Una centellinata scelta di assenza come ricerca “del suono del silenzio”: l’ambiente ed il contesto, qui, diventano amplificatore naturale di ronzii, impurità sonore e rumori sussurrati elementi “strumentali” d’eccellenza per una rigorosa ed elegante composizione ai limiti dell’astrazione.. Astrazione “come realizzazione dell’essere..” come si legge nel Modernismo critico di Tadao Ando di K.Frampton.(7.0/10)
Sara Bracco
SENTIRE ASCOLTARE [ITA]
Tutt'altra storia per il 3" dello stesso Turra. Ispirato al lavoro dell'architetto giapponese Tadao Ando, con registrazioni sul campo effettuate presso la Vitra Seminar House da lui progettata in Germania, "Texture.Vitra" riveste di colta patina elettroacustica l'atono arredo microsonico. L'apparente inespressività e l'estetica del vuoto elevate a nitida poetica zen in un persistente equilibrio spazio-temporale in bilico tra presenza e assenza. (8)
Nicola Catalano
BLOW UP [ITA]
With a discography comprising of just three EPs and two net releases, Koyuki Sound has already established itself as a label to watch. The 3 inch format allows for tight quality control and strict conceptual coherency, puristic packaging emphasises the preeminence of the music while the harmonious and shapely designs tingle one’s hunter-gatherer instincts. Stylistically, especially, the outfit has established a distinct script: Quiet, discreet and elegant, yet resonant, psychoactive and voluble using nothing but a minimal vocabulary.
After one of Koyuki’s two founders, David Sani, presented his personal vision on double-disc debut “Binaural Beats”, the label’s other head Luigi Turra now follows in his footsteps. As different as their perspectives may be, there is a clear continuation of certain aspects, as well as an obvious pool of shared aesthetics and techniques. At the heart of their art lies a shared fondness for the lower case movement, for its focus on silent sounds and its analytic methodology, which surgically dissects each musical element to work out its essence in a game of deep sonic penetration.
The principal characteristic of Turra, at least on “Texture.Vitra”, is his preference for timbres culled from walks and hikes through nature. While his friends and colleagues within the microsound community, lazily sat behind their PC monitor, content themselves with extending their microphone to the readily accessible areas of their room, he searches for sources outside. Instead of augmenting the capacities of barely perceivable utterances, his approach implies a backwards translation of subtle, yet clearly audible sounds to a cosmos of whisper.
The reason why this method exercises a strong fascination is because quietude, rather than alarming loudness, exposes the qualities and beauty of these field recordings most strongly. While most sound sources remain opaque even after repeated listening, there is a short passage which clearly seems to stem from the composer pulling and dragging stones. In its raw form, this would hardly have been an exciting proposition, but by filtering out every impurity, Turra insteads presents the listener with a sonic Jung'ean archetype – an intruiging and intense statement.
Just under twenty minutes, “Texture.Vitra” is essentially made up of several similarly arranged scenes, some of them concentrating on finely rasping scratches over a billowing drone, others on mantrically gyrating rumblings and sharply edged needle-stabs. Throughout, they manifest themselves as islands amidst an ocean of complete silence and as musical still lives, almost static and infinitely comforting in their reduction to the most important characteristics and movements.
Luigi Turra is not a manically prolific artist and since leaving the netlabel scene in favour of physical releases, he has produced just two full-lengths and this delicate 3’’ over the last one and a half years. This, too points to a desire for tight quality control and strict conceptual coherence. Every sound holds the danger of destroying the fine musical net he weaves and he has wisely chosen to place them carefully.
By Tobias Fischer
TOKAFI [USA]
Luigi Turra (also know as Esa) is an Italian-born sound artist, installation performer, and graphic designer. He has multiple netlabel releases including two personal favorites: (environmental) on Sinewaves [2006] and texture.aero on adozen.org [2007]. The year 2007 also realized his well-received CD release Enso on the Small Voices label. Among his compositional techniques is creating new interpretations of sonic spaces via processing environmental/field recordings.
Texture.Vitra is an aural impression of a man-made geometric space. According to the press release, it's derived from field recordings taken in 2007 at Weil am Rhein, Germany using a duo of omnidirectional microphones placed inside and outside Tadao Ando's architectural project Vitra Seminar House . It's a nineteen-minute composition of spacious and variably droning minimalism born of manipulated field recordings touched up with a hefty dose of reverb and layered with segments of resonating percussive noise with some light sizzle added for a mild grainy texture. The ambiance varies from thick and seemingly everywhere to sparse and nearly vanishing. Beyond the drones there are chafing noises, metallic groans, and deep, sub-surface bass resonations that push the composition into darker territory.
Texture.Vitra is an excellent slice of abstract minimal sound art based on the perception of artifical spaces. It takes Koyuki Sound another step further in the right direction of establishing it as minimalist label to be reckoned with.
Larry Johnson
EARLABS [USA]
Luigi Turra is an Italian born sound artist and graphic designer that has a discography of three releases on Microsuoni, Small Voices and Koyuki labels. This last released this month a 3” CD called ‘Texture.Vitra’ which is based in field recordings taken from the inside and the outside architect Tadao Ando’s project ‘Vitra Seminar House’.
The sounds - both environmental and concrete sources - were reprocessed by Turra. This work evolves ranging silence, drones and metal material that spread dark tones.
‘Texture.Vitra’ is a minimal piece of 19 minutes long layered y rich textures that keep the listener very anxious about what’s coming next and silence plays a key role in the whole atmosphere the dares to create.
GuillermoEscudero
LOOP [CL]
In sharp contrast to his recent “Enso” release, Luigi Turra explores a more restrained pallete of sounds. Texture Vita is essentially a tone-work, a thought-provoking, deeply meditative piece opening with a shifting, tonal bass layer, that sounds like the lower notes of a piano, caught in a timeless loop, topped off with a slender, granular skrim. The whole piece is an interpretative field recording, gleaned from two omni-directional microphones, inside and outside architect Tadao Ando’s project, Vitra Seminar House.
This is a hugely atmospheric condensation of elements of the immediate area, where scrapings and creakings billow with muscular reverb, slowly descending into darker, and virtually inaudible realms, with a characteristic “barely there” aesthetic. Something drum-like here is being gently rolled around, engendering deeply resonant tonalities, whilst high above, and in the more treble sound register, there are various metallic movements, encapsulated within a rotating bass layer.
Texture Vitra is a masterful slab of evocative minimalism, and once again, Koyuki Sound have firmly established themselves as a minimalist label of considerable stature.
A full length release beckons?
BGN
WHITE_LINE [UK]