ŌTONN // Two Crumbling Shapes TAPE

Dinzu Artefactsなどから発表しているドラマーNicholas RemondinoとボイスパフォーマーAndrea Silvia GiordanoによるエレクトロアコースティックデュオŌTONNが2021年4月に70本限定でリリースしたカセット。リズミカルでテンションが高いコラージュ6曲を収録。DLコード付属。

レーベルその他作品はこちら /// Click here to see more Esc.rec. releases available at Tobira.

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Edition of 70. Numbered limited edition cassette in handmade covers with different versions of the artwork, created by Harco Rutgers.

Description and bio by Esc.rec.:

"ŌTONN is an impressive electro acoustic duo, comprised of two young and very talented artists: singer Andrea Silvia Giordano and drummer Nicholas Remondino.

'Two Crumbling Shapes' is sound that crumbles and cracks. A constant degeneration that shapes the substance of the music. It's the relentless evolution of an impro-session - then intensely manipulated - based on destructured sounds, music languages and the development of the single parameters that compose them.

Featuring artists Pierre Bastien, E-cor Ensemble, Gianluca Verlingieri, Maria Dybbroe and Torstein Lavik Larsen helped push the sound of ŌTONN even further.

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Nicholas Remondino fell in love with the drums from an early age and after an initial period of study at the Academy of Modern Music, he began attending the Siena Jazz University; in the same years he developed interest and sensitivity towards improvisation that led him to follow workshops with musicians such as Ernst Reijseger, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Stefano Battaglia and Susanne Abbuehl, playing with international artists such as Akira Sakata, Gino Robair and Steve Buchanan and improvisers of the Italian scene like Alessandro Giachero, Giovanni Di Domenico and Silvia Bolognesi. From these meetings many experimental projects are born, ranging from jazz, radical improvisation, contemporary music, folk, pop and electronic music.

During the first years of her musical training, Andrea Silvia Giordano attended the E. Bianchi art school, and the vocal course of the F. Ghedini conservatory and Fondazione Fossano Musica. In those years, she sang in several vocal ensembles. In 2015, she started jazz studies at Siena Jazz University (Italy), before moving to Luzern (Switzerland) to study with Susanne Abbuehl and Lauren Newton. In 2017, she attended Stefano Battaglia, Alvise Violin and Ernst Reijseger workshops, which influenced her approach to composition and music. She is currently attending the music performance master at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. The main aspect which characterises her musical journey is the internal process of self discovery and the attention she pays to the psychological impact of music."

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Review by NR in Vital Weekly:

"ŌTONN consists of singer Andrea Silvia Giordano and drummer Nicholas Remondino. Their music is electro-acoustic, but with subtle nods to contemporary electronic music that makes them stand out from their peers. On their debut album ‘Two Crumbling Shapes’ they present the listener with layers of manipulated improvisational jams that sound like everything and nothing else I’ve heard recently. Which in itself means the album is interesting, but there is more to it than that. If that wasn’t enough, ŌTONN also features Pierre Bastien, E-cor Ensemble, Gianluca Verlingieri, Maria Dybbroe and Torstein Lavik Larsen. Again, this makes the album remarkably interesting indeed.

While listening to ‘Two Crumbling Shapes’ I am reminded of an old building not far from where I live. Each time I pass it something is a little different. The local fauna has reclaimed another inch of its hulking shape. Another area that has been targeted in an ongoing game of graffiti tag. Kids have climbed the fence and had a party around it. But at the centre is the building itself. At its core ‘Two Crumbling Shapes’ is about disintegration. The disintegration of ideas, speech, culture, and music. Throughout its 36-minutes ‘Two Crumbling Shapes’ sounds like its gradually eroding from within. There is pleasure in this. As the album progresses the songs become more and more fractured. At times Remondino’s beats sound like rumble falling from on high. Giordano’s vocals are used more like an instrument than to tell a story. Her vocal range goes from tender whispers to guttural bellows. Underneath all, there are wonky synths and hulking basslines. All of this combined gives the music a unique take on musique concrete. Yes, I know that this isn’t musique concrete, but the backing tracks have that slightly unsettling feeling that you can’t quite explain, or comprehend, but is utterly compelling to listen to.

Throughout ŌTONN ask us to reconsider how we feel about disintegration. Do we enjoy how the music is broken down into just a series of sounds and blips? ‘Sprout’ is a prime example of this. At times it is just the sound of glitching and machines dying. This is a sound we know all too well, but here there is an elegant beauty to the technological death throes. It makes us question our need for having the newest phone or tablet and what this means to the world we live in. Its poses questions about an isolated society where everything is conveyed through a phone, or screen, instead of face to face and what happens when those devices cease working. Of course, ŌTONN don’t have the answers, nor do we really, but by making us think about these issues ‘Two Crumbling Shapes’ becomes something else than just six songs on a cassette."

Artist : ŌTONN

Label : Esc.rec.