Aside from the name itself, many examples of experimental music evoke the controlled explorations and examinations of a scientific laboratory environment, from the almost industrial whirs and crackles of Andrea Borghi’s VHS machine dissections to the dynamic sterility of Keith Rowe’s arcane setups of pocket fans, objects, tabletop guitar, and other devices. I and many others greatly enjoy the sonic results of approaches like these, because while the sounds themselves may not contain much humanity they’re always introduced and manipulated with a distinctly human level of control. Filtro, the duo project of Italian sound artists Angelo Bignamini and Luca de Biasi, presents two extended pieces that certainly embody what I’ve just described on Forma. The two musicians rely on the limitless possibilities of “concrete sounds and electrical interferences” as sound sources for their improvisations, the material “treated with extreme dynamism using a reel to reel recorder and a modular synthesizer” to produce the shifting mass of buzz, hum, flit, and clatter that spreads itself across the two tracks. The warbling tape manipulations are flung into the fray like multicolored fishing nets, harnessing the lush combinations of found sound in maneuverable physical form while darting clouds of electrical static and radio noise are carefully woven throughout. Forma finds itself somewhere between call-and-response improvisation and collective cacophony as Bignamini and de Biasi form an immersive mass of sound through their interactions.
Noise Not Music 