Musci* / Venosta* / Mariani* – Losing The Orthodox Path

LOSING THE ORTHODOX PATH
is an hommage to ancient music, but through an "electro-acoustic" approach. Our jazz and/or rock souls do the rest.

1. BLUE (R. Musci - G. Venosta) 6’22"
I) Prologue-sea (0:00) II) Depth (0:47) III) Hard motion (2:29) IV) Calling (4:01) V) Blues! (5:03) VI) Epilogue (6:01)
featuring (among others): rain-stick. some quotations from Segovia's reflections on music. treated & prepared electric guitar. reversed samples from instrumental medieval music. fragments from an aboriginal taiwanese chant. sample-loop from a Britten's cello sonata. Blue is also the colour of the pigments used by the french painter Yves Klein during a certain period of his short life.

2. THE ADVENT OF ROSE + CROIX (R. Musci - G. Venosta - M. Mariani) 6’00"
I) Nursing WOO) II) Catacombs (0:49) III) The art of "strappato" (2:51)
featuring (among others): detuned acoustic guitar heavily treated through hard-disk recording. fragments of gregorian chant manipulated through cd player and sent into multiple delays. detuned acoustic guitar returns as a solo without treatments. Yves Klein was a member of Rose+Croix as well as Erik Salle. The keyboard reiterates an introduction from Saiie's "Sonneries de la Rose+CroLv", but hardly moving from the "modal gravity" established by the polyphonic (?)gregorian chant. Here again the final solo has some blue.sy nuances but it's played hying to follow the "strappato" techniques of the far-east zither players.

3. OU EST TI (R. Musci - G. Venosta - M. Mariani) 4’57"
I) Tiredness (0:00) II) Laments (0:30) III) Winds (1:10)
featuring (among others): samples taken from litanies of mount Athos monks (at slower speed). reversed samples of a greek woman voice (ditto). 4 saxophone simultaneous solos (1 soprano, 1 baritone. 2 altos). / The four saxophone solos have been cut & compressed in order to generate a new solo which embodies the characteristics of each of these instruments. 11‘

4. LA MORRA (M. Mariani - G. Venosta) 7’08”
I) Explosion 1 (0:00) II) Distance (0:41) III) Explosion 2 (3:36) IV) Fire (4:15)
featuring (among others): electric guitar treated through hard-disk recording. tubes. fake mute trumpet. samples of dolphin calls. sample-loop of percussion from upper Egypt. samples from turkish sufi chants. Apart from sounds of electric guitar, harmonica, thunders & rain, violin, percussion, all other sounds have been produced by means of mouth (human & animal). La "morra" is a game about chance. We used this "technique" while singing the most consonant vocal parts.

5. BROKEN OXYGEN (R. Musci) 3’17"
I) Entrance (0:00) II) Saxophones desseches (0:30) III) Ogives vocales (1:27) IV) Danses gothiques (2:10) V) Exit (3:03)
featuring (among others): some quotations from Pierre Schaeffer's reflections on "musique concrete". samples from japanese theatre. samples from Palestrina's, Monteverdi's, Schiitz's and Ravel's vocal music. Some samples of ancient classical music can sound pretty "schoenbergian" only because they have been reversed.

6. HIC SUNT LEONES (M. Mariani - G. Venosta) 10’40"
I) Crowding the square (0:00) II) Procession (1:36) III) Officium (3:23) IV) Estatic chant (4:43) V) Dance 1 (6:38) VI) Reaching pink noise (7:02) VII) Dance 2 (10:09)
featuring (among others): jew's harp. contrabass clarinet. mouth-noise with live electronics. ocarina. pandaa. all these (real) sources have been treated through hard-disk recording. digital percussion. greek chant. prepared piano solo accompanied by two darboukas. A tranfonnation of some specific sounds into as much speck other sounds: jew's harp into church bells, vocal sounds into flowing liquids or distant steps, ocarina into nocturnal birds, contrabass clarinet into moving firnitures or organ (just to name a few). The "tenor" sung by the "gregorian choir" has quotes from F. Zappa's "Peaches in Regalia”.

7. CONTRA'L RAI (M. Mariani - G. Venosta) 5’39"
I) Chanson (0:00) II) Interlude (2:27) III) Chanson (2:57) IV) Postlude (3:52)
featuring (among others): bowed double bass and reeds samples both treated through live electronics. spinet in "lute" register. "To rest our ears" wrote Charles Ives introducing the third movement of his fourth symphony. The text of this love song is partially taken from a "chanson" of the troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn.

8. BARONS (M. Mariani - G. Venosta) 1’38"
I) Introduction (0:00) II) Invective (0:05)
featuring (among others): feedback. tubes. valiha. digital percussion. Fragments of these lyrics are taken from another troubadour named Peire Vidal. This heavy invective in "tarantella" form is against the "barons" of the world. Feedback saturates the sounds of tubes and valiha, and also ends the disc.

Produit, enregistré et mixé par R. Musci, G. Venosta & M. Mariani au Fx Studio de Milan, de 1994 à 1996

Special thanks to Dieter Heitkamp, Luca Mastroserio, Walter Prati, Riccardo Vaglini. Marco "Bill" Vecchi & Memi Zanchetta and to all artists for their great performances.