Claudio F. Baroni
Ensemble MAZE
CD on Unsounds, released 2020
1 – Atama (The Head)
2 – Kao (The Face)
3 – Kata (The Shoulder)
4 – Senaka (The Back)
5 – Hara (The Belly)
6 – Heso (The Navel)
7 – Uesuto (The Waist)
8 – Hippu (The Hip)
9 – Koshi (The Pelvis)
10 – Oshiri (The Butt)
11 – Ashi (Legs & Feet)
The music on this album originates in the interactive sound installation The Body Imitates the Landscape by artist Adi Hollander: she designed a collection of ergonomic objects that are meant to transform music into vibrations felt through the entire body. Hollander was inspired by the Japanese book Karada by Michitaro Tada about the ‘school of the body’. Hollander and Claudio F. Baroni made a live version of the installation where Baroni’s music, performed by Maze, was experienced live by the public. As it was channeled through the objects, the public could at once hear the music in the space and feel it in their bodies.
This album features 11 pieces, each, as in the book Karada, dedicated to a part of the body. Baroni has written those 11 pieces for the Ensemble Maze around recorded whispered voices. This is Baroni’s third collaboration with Unsounds. It comes with liner notes by Reinaldo Laddaga (a important guest on Unsounds with Things That A Mutant Needs To Know and The Men From Russia).
REVIEWS:
nitestylez.de
Released on January 15th, 2k20 via the Amsterdam-based Unsounds imprint is “The Body Imitates The Landscape”, an album piece created by experimental music composer Claudio F. Baroni in conjunction with Ensemble Maze, based on and around music for an interactive sound installation of the same name by Adi Hollander. And even though it is, for most of the times and including this album, impossible to bring out the full experience of an installation piece without the physical experience of actually being on location in an album recording seperated from its irl visual / sensual counterpart, in this specific case the physical experience of sound channeled through objects within the installation, we see Claudio F. Baroni and Ensemble Maze create an intimate, stripped down and somewhat touching (headphone) listening experience with sparse, spatial arrangements of natural instruments and tenderly used electronics, all built around pre-recorded, predominantly whispering voices, with an individual speakers voice assigned to each of the eleven single tracks on the album which, despite being individual compositions on their own, melt and amalgamate into one big piece, slowly and consistently communicating with ones subconscious rather than one’s conscious mind and thoughts, implementing a deeply felt calmness and focus in the listener and therefore might be, although not solely composed as, referred to as Deep Ritual Music to open up a new drawer within the world of electronic and experimental music.
Silence And Sound
Oeuvre composée par Claudio F. Baroni et interprétée par l’ensemble MAZE (Anne la Berge, Gareth Davis, Dario Calderone, Reinier Van Houdt, Wiek Hijmans, Yannis Kyriakides), The Body Imitates The Landscape trouve son origine dans la création d’objets ergonomiques créés par Adi Hollander, qui transforment la musique en vibrations, ressenties par le corps.
Les chuchotements caressent nos sens, nous transportant dans un espace étrangement apaisant, dans lequel le rythme des mots ruisselle sur les notes d’instruments disséminant les notes à propos, coups de pinceaux pointillistes sur une toile en apesanteur.
Un coté méditatif se dégage de l’ensemble, de par ses vibrations et son flot régulier aux allures de métronome hypnotique. On est littéralement happé par la sérénité enrobante qui s’accapare de tout notre être, enveloppant nos pores d’un halo de matière musicale à la quiétude relaxante. A savourer et ressentir au casque !
Roland Torres