In writing about Kino’s Playing series a few weeks ago, I mused about the convolution-qua-trivialization of the field recording tradition, a trend that always interests me no matter what the genre, medium, or context. But it’s also true that charting the aesthetic and/or conceptual evolution of an art form in this way can also end up obscuring the beautiful simplicity of the object itself. Take the newest release on NNM favorite Vacancy, Luigi Bilodo’s self-titled debut cassette, for example. An unassuming C60 with each half comprising a single unedited piece, it could conceivably fit at the end of some stylistic arc-trajectory of field recording and sound art in general, but that doesn’t change the fact that at the end of the day, one side features the sound of rain on a pizza box and the other a gas-powered tractor-mower. Radically repetitive, minimalistic, and above all humble, Bilodo’s work is resolutely neither more nor less than what it is. “Pizza Box of Rain” might be described as a stripped-down, budget-conscious peer of Henry Collins’ Prepared Rain, but where that release drew intrigue and variety from the lush complexity of the passive percussion arrays, here the unceasing pitter-patter upon the cardboard lid is heard from within the box, a placement that reads as claustrophobic but in fact plays as calming, even cathartic (helped along by how expansive the stereo range is). There’s a lot more room to breathe in “La Pelouse (New Country),” a pastoral tractor-mower ride over verdant fields, the lulling purr of the engine blurring into a warm, full drone that fills ears with sunshine and fresh grass clippings. The diptych as a whole has such a wonderful homespun essence; it radiates an emotional energy both despite and because of its mundanity.
Noise Not Music 