Released
1998
Label
Fuoco
Reviewed by
Michael C. Lund
Visit
Eibon Records
Last Edit/Update
22 February, 1999
I Burn
Infraharmonies, Scald Cavities
Track Listing
1. SHC
2. Overheating Passage
3. Branding Jesus
4. Jumping eyes on the white-hot milkpan
5. Ignis Deletus
6. Cremation Sleepiness
7. Incandescence
8. The immediate environment of incendium
9. Arsonism
10. Prophesyng non-motion
11. I'll rush to globe's bedside
12. Bodybread, Furnace Wine
13. I Burn
Last year (1997) the team of Gabriele
Santamaria and Maurizio Landini released the CD Traumende under the
name of Ordeal, and like this former collaboration, their new release as I
Burn is strongly atmospheric. However, whereas the sound of Ordeal
is expansive, and rests on a classical foundation, the music of I Burn is
minimalistic, based on repetition and starker in the use of synthetic instrumentation.
Infraharmonies, Scald Cavities
features thirteen compositions that can be described as sonic still lives. Sounds that are
sampled, created on synthesizers, or given life through intense manipulation of electric
guitar chords, have been looped and arranged in patterns that are repeated with only the
slightest of variations, if any at all. Landini and Santamaria's focus
appears to be on evoking certain atmospheres and emotions, and once these situations have
been created, to rest within them and attain a meditative effect through repetition and
sustenance.
The moods established are
predominantly dark and foreboding. Many of the pieces are dominated by low droning,
vibrating harmonies and frequency manipulations that conjure up images of subterranean
locales, or dream projections from inside the hermetic chambers of the listener's mind
itself. Given the abstract nature of the compositions, each listener will likely bring
their own set of visuals to the experience of hearing Infraharmonies, Scald Cavities,
and it would therefore seem unfair to superimpose any personal imaginings on the music in
the context of this review. However, there seems little doubt that the emotions I
Burn contemplates on this CD are of loss and the ending of things in general.
Originally released by Santamaria
and Landini's own label Manteinance in an extremely limited
edition of only 100 copies, Infraharmonies, Scald Cavities has now been reissued
with an additional five tracks. The re-release has been made available by Fuoco,
an imprint created by two of Italy's leading labels of dark and atmospheric music -- Eibon
Records and Amplexus.
