TAKEN FROM THE FORTHCOMING ALBUM SCURO CHIARO – OUT 11 JUNE 2021
Alessandro Cortini has shared the video for new track, ‘LO SPECCHIO’, the latest to be taken from his forthcoming new album, SCURO CHIARO – out on 11 June 2021 on vinyl, CD and digitally.
SCURO CHIARO comes from a place that delights in the affirmation of life’s constant variations, simultaneously presenting both bewilderment and vulnerability with its sombre hues and pulsing, synthetic surfaces. The new video illustrates this perfectly as once again, Alessandro Cortini collaborates with the director Marco Ciceri and CGI creators Ciceri and Axel Schoterman for this journey through strangely familiar terrain.
Watch the video here:
The album’s title plays on the term for heavily contrasting light and shadow in painting and other visual arts. Cortini explains, “SCURO CHIARO is the opposite of chiaroscuro
[the use of light and shadow to give strong contrast]
, and in a way it shows that no matter how you order things there’s always going to be two elements that tend to be the opposite of each other that make up the truth—or make up everything.”
On his previous album, VOLUME MASSIMO (2019, his first for Mute), Cortini developed a process he carried through to this album, working through his archive of personal recordings, carefully surveyed to find sounds and elements with which to compose. “To me things that were created apart in time can fit together in a work of art, and it doesn’t matter when they were created,” says Cortini. “You drink wine that is ten years old with a meal that is freshly handmade. The final product, in my opinion, doesn’t need to be made at the same time.” The artwork for SCURO CHIARO, shot by Emilie Elizabeth, is an extension of the thematic bridge between the two works.
Cortini’s recently collaborated with electronic musical instrument manufacturer Make Noise to create a bespoke instrument and effects unit, Strega. “Strega is a successful attempt to condense my sonic aesthetic into a music making box,” Cortini says. “Throughout the time that I finished the record I was receiving prototypes, and their work was integrated on the record.”
The beauty of SCURO CHIARO lies in its contradictions. The abrasive elements that cycle in and out of focus across the album all find resolution in the warm ambiences that crackle and hiss into life in the background of every track.
SCURO CHIARO TRACKLISTING:
ECCO
CHIAROSCURO
LO SPECCHIO
CORRI
SEMPRE
VERDE
NESSUNO
FIAMMA
RECENT DISCOGRAPHY:
ILLUSION OF TIME – with Daniel Avery (2020, Mute / Phantasy)
VOLUME MASSIMO (2019, Mute)
IMMEDIATE HORIZON – with Lawrence English (2018, Important Records)
AVANTI (2017, Point of Departure Recordings)
ALESSANDRO CORTINI AND MERZBOW (2017, Important Records)
FORSE (2015, Important Records)
PRE-ORDER: https://mute.ffm.to/ac-sc
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