It’s not often we see Arnold Schönberg quoted on a cover, so it’s nice to repeat it: “even variation is a form of repetition”. Gianluca Favaron is someone who has been around for quite some time with his solo work, as well as in groups as Under The Snow, Zbeen and Ab’she. On this new solo CD, which isreleased in an edition of 100 copies with an individual image stuck on the sleeve, he plays a variety of instruments, such tape recorders, analogue synth, objects, guitar, field recordings, contact microphones, hydrophones, cartridge and effects and recorded the music from April to December last year.
Silentes says about this release: “Favaron has elaborated his concept of repetition by frangling the sound to break it down into infinitesimal parts. Therefore adding a new piece in his discography that represents an essential starting point for new research. In the sound. Of sound.” I am not sure how all of that works out, I must admit, as what I hear sounds very much like what I expected from a release by Favaron. The microscopic look at small sounds, perhaps if you will the residue of sound, captured on tape, and spun around on reel-to-reel machines, speeding up and slowing down, usually at the same time it seems, comes with more debris from the rest of the instruments used. There is some fine interplay with field recordings from the streets below, some multi-effect machine set to distortion, but then just very occasionally, waving a small drone below. In effect one could say this is very much musique concrete, with a strong love for hands on manipulation of sounds, turning those small sound particles into very vibrant pieces of music, cutting and splitting up and stitching the whole thing together again. All of this makes up another very fine Favaron release, his usual high quality. (FdW)
