GIOVANNI GRAMEGNA / AR.MA “Noise Study” / “Insect Hunter” C55 (Plaża Zachodnia)

 

Giovanni Gramegna suggests noise on “Noise Study,” the A-side of this here split. There’s just too much tone here, too much to grasp onto to really slide it into a “noise” category. Now, if Gramegna has been studying noise itself, and not presenting this side as a collection of “noise” for us to “study,” then he may have found something. Hidden in those sheets of feedback and power electronics are wisps of beauty, shimmering celestial illuminations serving as living groundwork for the onslaught of intensity. Or maybe this is just his idea of noise. If it is, I want to be inside his head, like all the time.
 
Artur Maciak, aka AR.MA, has a little bit of a different approach on “Insect Hunter” – mainly because side B doesn’t waste much time building itself up to sound like insects themselves. Well, just because “Noise Study” didn’t sound like actual insects doesn’t make it any less of a spiritual cousin. AR.MA gets out into nature at night, where there’s no light pollution, and records the experience. It’s all wispy clouds on the wind and starlight, silhouettes of trees, and rustling, indistinct movement. The insect hunter is always ready, and adventure is constant and meaningful.
 
https://plazach.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan

THANOS FOTIADIS “Five Triptychs for Upheaval” (Plaża Zachodnia)

Upheaval, clearly, is the act of disruption, of lives interrupted by outside forces that cause palpable changes to the status quo. Upheaval doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing – such shifts can shake off rust, get you out of a rut, point you on a different, better path. Upheaval can be a bad thing too if you’re not ready for it, or if it actively inhibits your ability to procure the basics for living. We could go down that rabbit hole and get ourselves upset about a bunch of things. But you know what I mean.

 

Thanos Fotiadis, a “composer”/“curious human being,” contemplates the minutiae of upheaval throughout his, well, aptly titled Five Triptychs for Upheaval. Each of the five pieces is set up as a triptych, so you have to cut them into thirds before you hang them on your wall. I kid! Using “a modular system and a Soma Ether,” Fotiadis enacts his commotion on an atomic level, shaking the very molecules of your existence, agitating them with currents and pulses. This feels like drone, Five Triptychs for Upheaval is more a live wire just under the skin, electricity rippling through your body until you’re out of your chair and moving a lot quicker than you were before.

 

It’s only a matter of time before you leave behind what you once knew and embark on a new and determined path. As Fotiadis says, drone equals time, and he’s there to underlie your processes as they unfold with his drone. Let’s just hope he doesn’t snap his fingers while wearing that Infinity Gauntlet, right? That’ll really get us upheaved!

 

Sorry, bad joke, but I couldn’t help myself.

 

https://thanosfotiadis.bandcamp.com/

 

https://plazach.bandcamp.com/

 

--Ryan

AR.MA “Winter” C46 (Plaża Zachodnia)

Artur Maciak is stranded in the freezing wastes during the darkest part of the year. How does he cope? Does he build a cabin, a fire? Does he huddle among trees, or seek a cave of some sort to escape the wind?

As AR.MA, he does none of those things. Instead, he experiences, observes, records, and contemplates his environment, drawing inspiration from it (not to mention field recordings) and regurgitating that inspiration in sonic sculpture.

He basically builds a snowman. A really artistic snowman.

The pieces freeze hard, dry, brittle, thawing periodically to trickle before the next cold snap. They shift and creak, twinkle and shimmer. They are brutal and beautiful. You are out in it.


Plaża Zachodnia


--Ryan

PLEQ + PHILIPPE LAMY “Space” C60 (Plaża Zachodnia)

The cold, dark reaches of it. Suspended without gravity. Stasis. “Space” by prolific sound artists Pleq (Bartosz Dziadosz) and Philippe Lamy hovers, its frigid expanse entering your bones as if it were measured at a temperature of absolute zero. The sound of every body part instantaneously freezing enters your mind, then plays on a loop for sixty minutes. Layered with that is Musica universalis, a celestial sonic palette used to conjure “Black Horizons,” “White Holes,” and “Immensity.” Turns out you can’t fathom space – not with your tiny human mind.

Dziadosz and Lamy try, though – oh, how they try, and they manage to capture the beauty and awe of the universe. They dedicate their work to Swedish composer Marcus Fjellström, who passed away in 2017. “Immensity (Untitled 2)” is indeed a remix of a Fjellström piece to honor his memory. Perhaps they imagine Fjellström’s spirit flitting through the cosmos and observing it in some way. I can think of no more fitting tribute than that.

Pleq

Philippe Lamy

Plaża Zachodnia


--Ryan