Dear Friends,

here we are again with a further short chapter of “post-views” on RareNoiseRecords’ past releases. We forwarded the link to the first part to a close acquaintance of ours, who quipped “Nostalgia already?”.

Let us say this is an attempt to create a “myopic byopic”, to actually seek the distortion in perspective afforded by the excessive proximity to release events…

RNR006 – PARCHED – ARC

Arc, by Parched had a long gestation – it had been worked upon since the last months of 2008, as befits a recording that makes stratification and downtempo its core references. The two baritone electric guitars of Eraldo Bernocchi and Davide Tiso are intertwined in a spiral of conversations worthy of a desert landscape, maybe not even an earthly desert landscape. – music which is “long, barren, pensive, delicate, touching, a harrowing road open to only those who know what they should say, yet decide to mutter no word at all” . References that come to mind are Morricone, Ry Cooder (in Paris, Texas) and possibly Fripp. Abandoned playgrounds, ghostly barns, crieking rocking chairs and wind, the dry wind populate the panorama.

Arc was released concurrently to the previously mentioned Torn From Black Space by Death Cube K late 2009, during our “Ambient Month” , as a study in contrasts – DCK will fill your soul with Black Bile, mephitic vapours and intestinal sludge while Parched is an exercise in purification and deep cleansing, though not via the medium of purity of sound, but through the the sense of void and vertigo (a kantian bliss) that is achieved when one feels both minute and huge in front of vast, never ending constructs of matter and sound that are intricately chiselled by masters of the guitar craft.

RNR004 – SOMMA – 23 WHEELS OF DHARMA

 The year 2010 opened with a pretty long hiatus – we had run like headless chicken (Buckethead might even approve) for the second half of 2009 – so only by the end of Q1 we were ready to release the new album of Somma, 23 Wheels of Dharma. The history of Somma (brainchild of Eraldo Bernocchi and Petulia Mattioli) is a long one: Somma, which seeks the integration of live tibetan horns and chanting into a context of modern musical references, from electronica to dub and progressive jazz, made its first public appearance  on November 26, 1996 at Teatro Regio in Torino Italy in front of 1600 people, shortly after the release in 1995 of Hooked Light Rays. This early record  was followed in 2007 by “Somma“, which documented the Live performance of Somma in 2001 in Trento, Italy, in front of his Holiness the Dalai Lama (an exceptionally beautiful record we would like to add). The third in this series, 23 Wheels of Dharma, documents the live performance of Somma in Milan in 2007, at the Teatro Dal Verme. Present on stage Eraldo Bernocchi, Bill Laswell, Hamid Drake, Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, Raiz/Rino (who had sung on Meditronica), the italian vocal trio Faraualla and the wonderful Nils Petter Molvaer with tibetan monks. The incredible live visuals were created by Petulia Mattioli with Stefano Cecere.

RNR008 – THE MANTRA ABOVE THE SPOTLESS MELT MOON – DEFEATED SONGS

September 2010 saw the release of The Mantra Above The Spotless Melt Moon’s first full Album on RareNoiseRecords, Defeated Songs. This work took had an incredibly long gestation (well over a year) – a year of travelling for our four heroes Adriana Salomone, Davide Famularo, Maurizio Oliviero and Salvio Sibillo back and forth from Naples to Eboli, to work with producer Luigi Nobile of Monochrome.  The first album is always very important – one wants to condense all the ideas hitherto accumulated into something deemed representative of a lifetime of music ideas – after months of excessive stratification of ideas. the time came to start removing them one layer at a time, to obtain the correct balance of colour, sound and intensity. The recording absorbs influences from Mogwai to GodSpeed You Black Emperor! mixing them with memories of Pink Floyd, Laurie Anderson, not without referencing the Italian song tradition (Battiato) into a multifaceted whole of sophisticated indie/prog rock with tinges of jazz.

Defeated Songs also saw the continued collaboration of The Mantra ATSMM with romanian animator extraordinaire Anton Octavian who produced their second animated feature, for the track Septembers

RNR010 – BRAINKILLER – THE INFILTRATION

“Dear Rare Noise Records, My name is Brian Allen and I’m a trombonist and composer from Texas.  I’ve worked Anthony Braxton, Gerald Cleaver, Mark Dresser, Drew Gress, Satoko Fujii, Roswell Rudd, Nate Wooley and lead a trio with Tony Malaby and Tom Rainey. I have a band called “Brainkiller” with Japan-based keyboardist Jacob Koller and Argentinian,  Mexico City-based drummer Hernan Hecht.   We have been playing since 2000 and toured all over Canada, US and Mexico.  We have finished a recording and were wondering if you might consider it for release.  I’d be happy to send you a demo CD, but you can also hear samples and see a recent tour video from Mexico here . Sincerely, Brian Allen”  Our answer you may glean from looking to the right and listen the following track

What we did not know was that we were about to engage with musicians who actually come from a different planet. It turned out that Brian Allen, Jacob Koller and Hernan Hecht were in fact the earth names of intergalactic artist/scientists/AI hybrids Knoernschild, Otaku and Mr PacMan. This insight was a gift that came to us as a series of Revelations:

First, there was the sniff of Fruit and Vegetables and a voice “Come Frutas Y Verduras”, at the end of a short video that showed up at our door one morning

Per se, this would have not surprised us more than necessary, but then we chanced upon a secret conversation held in a very public place

At that point we knew, that not all was what it seemed. Shortly thereafter the incredible denouement, as romanian animator Anton Octavian delivered the final clue of this interstellar puzzle

Indeed all was starting to be clear. A cruel dictatorship, in a galaxy far far away, controlling the minds of the local population by restraining access to fruit and vegetable and forcing everyone to listen to ugly music thus transforming everyone into obedient tasteless MeatZombies . Three scientists, adventurers and heroes, fighting this plague one stage at a time, from small ones in Mexico

to bigger ones in Italy

We are told more clues will appear soon – we will comunicate them to you immediately so that we may slowly piece together the parts of this intergalactic musical mystery.

Until next time …

GOD AND THE DEVIL IN THE LAND OF THE SUN

Arc by Parched is AVAILABLE NOW in the RareNoiseRecords store and from all major digital retailers.

Let extraordinary guitarists Eraldo Bernocchi and Davide Tiso guide you on the long, barren, pensive, delicate, touching, harrowing road open to only those who know what they should say, yet decide to mutter no word at all.

Arc is available in CD and digital audio only (FLAC, MP3 VBR high quality) format from us and in various digital audio formats from all known other digital retailers.

You may listen to the tracks on the pop – up player on the right hand column of the website

ENJOY a trip spanning the subtle bridge between Ry Cooder, Robert Fripp and Ennio Morricone. Only so much more complete and otherwordly that any of them could ever imagine.

Listen to it

Dream it

Sing to it

FEEL IT

Parched is featured on Mirages Acoustiques 12 of the Solenoide programme!