The inaugural Dinzu Artefacts batch – the label an extension of the
Spring Break Tapes brand (but of course its own thing) – is a monument to sound
sculpture. Let those words sink in for a second. Giovanni Lami, whose Opale consists of two sides, “Primo
Solco” and “Secondo Solco,” has concocted, for his part, a piece of
experimental music that defies the traditional boundaries of concept and
execution, of the physical and audible. It’s like he’s placed a theoretical
audio mirror in the same room as all the source material he’s drawn from for Opale, and in doing so the monument
becomes a monument to the monument, a sound sculpture chiseled in ProTools (or
whatever) that acts as a sound sculpture to his sound sculpture. The mirror
becomes itself, reflecting whatever it’s defining into infinity, and therefore
ends up becoming defined by it.
Lami, a Ravenna-born artist (that’s in Italy, you lazy map truthers),
literally builds Opale, his sonic
carpentry coalescing itself into one structure or another before moving on to
the next level. Field recordings mix with ambient texture, resulting in
combinations that are almost tangible. Lami’s experimental processes are never
less than interesting, as each moment escapes pure sound and becomes physically
tactile, a magic trick that my imagination completes as the willing
participant. Each side stretches over ten minutes, and getting lost in the
pieces is the easy part – reacclimating yourself to the world as you remember
it is the tricky bit. Opale is
perfect for museum earbud accompaniment as you stroll through corridors of
modern art.
--Ryan Masteller
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