Technical File

Date / Venue:

18 September 2016, Carrozzerie_n.o.t, Via Panfilo Castaldi 28/a, 00153 Rome, Italy / FB Event / Teatri di Vetro FB Page

Info / Links:

Official Website / Bandcamp / Discogs / FB Page

The 16th element in the RECORDINGS series is a live show by Luminance Ratio, recorded in Rome by our precious correspondant Carlo Cimmino few weeks ago. The night was the first of the two TDV10 episodes and hosted, other than LR, also two Italian premieres: Current’s ‘Sure, I will be’ and Deroom’s Blank Page.

Bio / Discography / Reviews:

“Luminance Ratio is a quartet which includes sound artists Gianmaria Aprile [Ultraviolet Makes Me sick, fratto nove records, Pipeline Trio/Quartet], Andrea Ferraris [Airchamber 3, Ur, Ulna, Sil Muir], Luca Mauri [I/O, Two Dead Bodies] and Luca Sigurtà who decided to join this project with the intention of going into new territories, far from their usual sound, putting themselves to service to an electro-acoustic research. The result is music that can make you levitate, psychically and emotionally, the different ingredients creating a unique, huge, psychedelic stream of consciousness”.

Discography

• Like Little Garrisons Besieged [Oct. 2009, Boring Machines / Fratto9 / Under the Sky Records, CD Carton Sleeve]
  • “The first record brings LR from their single member’s respective discographies and finds them sailing in the apparently quiet waters of free-folk, electroacoustics and minimal drones. Also featured on this release is Paul Bradley [Twenty Hertz, Monos, and many others]’s personal reinterpretation of their collective work, narrowed down to 20 minutes, assembling an expanded “remix concrète” out of the single tracks”

• Reverie [Sept. 2013, Bocian Records, 12” LP + CD) on coloured vinyl]
  • LR’s second full-length was released in September 2013 by the Bocian Records polish imprint, out on green and yellow coloured vinyl. The scapes defined by the quartet got more lively with respect to the previous full-length, the sounds warmer and each track’s dynamic more energetic. Strings also gain a key-role in the record – as you can most definitely hear in the wonderful Sunbeam and Il Mare pieces. Reverie hosts at times old-western atmospheres built too, on delayed guitars and sandy clouds of sounds.

• SEVEN INCH SERIES out on Frattonove / Kinky Gabber: Between 2012 and 2014,  the group released the three-chaptered 7” Series: it consisted of 3 seven inches split records, involving electro-acoustic expert artists and skilled experimenters from all over the world such as Steve Roden [US], Oren Ambarchi [AUS] and Yannis Kyriakides [CY]. All of the 7” were out on Frattonove [Gianmaria Aprile’s own label] and Kinky Gabber, that has been also releasing another slipt involving a LR member, Luca Sigurtà [Sigurtà / Panicsville].LR, and the other artists involved as well, contributed to the 7” vinyls with a track each. All the 3 occasions see LR expressing an evoking take on free-folk / drone music, putting themselves half-way from eastern-minimalism-inspired digressions and the free-est dreamy psychedelia. Vol.1 is enriched by Roden’s glitchy drone music packed in a 5-minutes-long tune, while Vol.2 and Vol.3 host Oren Ambarchi’s warm frequencies + throat-sung vocals and Kyriakides’ concréte cut-up and ethnic patterns.
  
  • Vol.1: LR & Steve Roden [Apr. 2012, 7” blue vinyl]

• Vol.2: LR & Oren Ambarchi [Jan. 2013, 7” red vinyl]

• Vol.3: LR & Yannis Kyriakides [Jun. 2014, 7” green vinyl]

• Honey Ant Dreaming [May 2016, Alt.Vinyl, [180g clear vinyl, handpulled screen-printed cover]
  • On May 2016 the third full-lenght record came out. The last LR effort was recorded in 2014 and mixed by Gianmaria Aprile and Luca Mauri. It was mastered by James Plotkin and comes with a handprinted xylography on cover made by Gianmaria Aprile, paged by Simone Grillo and Simone Fratti, while the hand-pulled screenprinted cover is by Sam Grant. Quoting the Alt.Vinyl records website: “the music on this album is muscular, dreamy, evocative and occasionally percussive: this is an initiatory journey inspired by the strength of the Honey Ant Mural painted in 1971 by Papunya’s aborigines“.
  • Honey Ant Dreaming follows the trails of its previous full-lenght, confirming the relatively short [35 minutes] duration and therefore gaining in focus and essentiality with respect to other coeval psychedelic records. Keep on quoting, the record is “an immersive trip through six tracks, created with a blend of guitars, electronics, percussions, beats and vibraphones“. The stress in Honey Ant Dreaming is very often put on the beat pattern – as can be clearly heard in the echoing, almost Godflesh-ish Great White’s All Around and in the opening eponymous track – and on rough / noise components that very often saturate the atmosphere.The wondrous journey put on this record has been perfectly staged by the quartet in the live performance we’re sharing today; this can undoubtedly lead LR to be recognized as one of the main contemporary Italian “rock” acts. The final information is about the band’s future activity: LR is now working on a 12” vinyl split with english band GNOD, a trippy and noisy drone / psychedelic collective formed in 2006, Manchester, UK.

Equipment:

• Guitars, Effects, Guqin, Sitar, Vibraphone, Syncussion [Gianmaria Aprile] • Laptop, Vocals, Effects, Percussions [Andrea Ferraris] • Guitars, Effects, Percussions [Luca Mauri] • Synth, Loops, Electronic Junk [Luca Sigurtà]

Extra:

• Here below you can see a short video excerpt of LR live performance, shot by Carlo Cimmino: here you can browse his YouTube channel, while here you’ll find also some other live sets to be listened to, straight out of his huge archive;
• Other than RECORDING#17, Carlo Cimmino already contributed to our column with RECORDING#7 by Metzengerstein, RECORDING#8 by Trans Upper Egypt, RECORDING#10 by Balance, RECORDING#11 by Trouble vs Glue, and many others to come;

Videos:

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PAYNOMINDTOUS is a non-profit organization registered in December 2018, operating since late 2015 as a webzine and media website. In early 2017, we started our own event series in Turin, IT focused on arts, experimental, and dancefloor-oriented music. We reject every clumsy invocation to “the Future” meant as the signifier for capitalistic “progress” and “innovation”, fully embracing the Present instead; we renounce any reckless and ultimately arbitrary division between “high” and “low”, respectable and not respectable, “mind” and “body”; we support and invite musicians, artists, and performers having diverse backgrounds and expressing themselves via variegated artistic practices.