[$7 // Edition of 200 // http://monofonuspress.com/store/tredici-baccienpse]
This cassette by Tredici Bacci and ENPSE acts more as a split album than as a split in the traditional sense because even each side has its own title. As closely related as I feel these two pieces can be as well, they also have their own differences which make them easy enough to tell apart if you were listening to them blindly.
"Vai! Vai! Vai!" begins with high piano keys (so they're at one extreme end of the piano-- an instrument I know very little about other than what I learned from my grandmother having one when I was growing up) and then turns into some groovy sort of psych rock with saxophone. Sad strings come in next and then even a trumpet and it makes me feel as if this is funeral music. Something very sad has happened.
There are classical female vocals in an operatic sense, which are followed by the drums kicking in and then a trumpet. It becomes somewhat uplifting before I realize that it sounds like a movie score. I realize there are seemingly endless ways to compare music with a soundtrack but this reminds me of one of the older films, Buster Keaton era, where they were silent and then the sounds were often generated by someone playing the piano along live.
It's not quite a western but it does have that feel to it somewhat, if only for the piano that you can imagine someone playing in a saloon, but then it somehow turns into a surf television theme song and, no, I can't even begin to place where that would go. The music itself has the essence of surf, not the theme song so it wouldn't be something like "Baywatch" or another show about surfing or the beach because the song could go to any number of shows. It seems to be for a show which does not yet exist though.
The female singing returns and this time it seems to be gentle and coming from something like the "Lord of the Rings" soundtrack, which of course does still maintain some of that classical sense but not as much operatic. Everything shifts into a better form of elevator jazz and that brings the Tredici Bacci side to an end. A silent film seems easy enough to create for this, as it could easily be shot low budget and in black and white, but the events which would unfold remain unclear to me.
It would certainly be interesting to see someone take a stab at this. I know Jay Gambit (Crowhurst / Girl 27) has been spending time adding soundtracks to old silent films and so I feel like this would be an endeavor for a filmmaker wishing to broaden their horizons in some sense. In any case, should a film ever be created to accompany this please let me know. Would I ever shoot it personally? Perhaps.
ENPSE's "Concetti" is seemingly the same combination of instruments as "Vai! Vai! Vai!" just orchestrated in a different manner. There are strings, horns and opera singing but also sounds coming out like when Stephanie Lak gets together with her friends. It does grow quieter, into an X-Files/FNL/ambient state before a slight ringing and then a loud bong sound breaks the silence.
As the sound picks back up the flurry of notes sounds like the opening to The Who's "Baba O'Riley", which I dig because I totally have a cat named Baba O'Riley. (For the record, in my house it is being used as a female name only because I have more female cats than boy cats because I love torties) There are screams and this sounds as if it could be the soundtrack to a slasher flick but not just in the musical sense in the way that you can also hear Freddy cutting everyone up.
It is frantic. It is loud. It is chaotic. And then it gets quiet.
There is a piano flurry before we head into the end, which takes us out in a punk-like manner. While this has more of the live/improvised feel that I do enjoy so much it also has a story within it somewhere that is just itching to be found. Those screams are real and something is happening to those people whether the monster is real or not (It could be an actual person/beast or it simply could be a boat capsizing in a storm)
Either way, the idea with both of these pieces by both artists is that they tell stories and what great stories they do tell. When I was in my early twenties I used to read a lot more than I did now. I could go through a book in a single night-- I'm not joking-- as I'd stay up into the wee hours of the morning, anxious to know how it ends. Having a three year old son though makes me tired by seven or eight o'clock and so when there is actually time for me to read I can barely keep my eyes open.
I compare music with movies a lot but I really should start comparing it to books because rather than having to read the words and have the images come to life in your imagination, these sounds are what brings the stories to life. Anything that can channel such creativity and such imagination (Yes, I am thinking of buying video editing software, if not for this then for something) is not just good or great-- it cannot be judged on scales of one to ten-- but it is to me simply essential as the air we breathe.
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