Rumori: Homage To Luigi Russolo - Volume 2


Gino Foti - Rumori: Volume 2 Track Listing
  • Into The Land Of Chimeras (3:22)
  • Cells Of Awareness (3:16)
  • Consumed From Within (3:00)
  • Incubo Indicibile (4:13)
  • Acolytes Of Summanus (3:54)
  • A Powerful Solace (3:10)
  • Anarchia Nell'Alveare (4:08)
  • A Tiger Into Lustre (4:26)
  • A Hot And Windy August Afternoon (3:18)
  • Un Ottimismo D'Acciaio (4:00)
  • Sulla Strada Per Adrianopoli (4:42)
  • Mobilis In Mobili (2:00)
  • Crescit Eundo (5:20)
  • A Storm On An Impetuous Course (3:04)
  • All My Nerves Are Naked Wires (2:00)
  • Swelling Sails Beneath The Stars (3:58)
  • Atavistic Relics (4:08)

Credits

Gino Foti - MIDI Bass Guitar, Bass Guitar, MIDI Bass Pedals, Analog & Digital Keyboards, Synthesizers, Digital Samples of Luigi Russolo's Intonarumori (Noise Intoners), Hand Percussion, Vocal Effects

Luigi Russolo - Intonarumori: Arco Enarmonico (Enharmonic Bow), Crepitatore (Crackler), Gorgogliatore (Gurgler), Gracidatore (Croaker), Rombatore (Roarer), Ronzatore (Hummer), Scoppiatore (Burster), Sibilatore (Whistler), Stropicciatore (Rubber), and Ululatore (Howler)

Overview

"Today, music, as it becomes continually more complicated, strives to amalgamate the most dissonant, strange and harsh sounds. In this way we come ever closer to noise-sound. [...] Every manifestation of our life is accompanied by noise. The noise, therefore, is familiar to our ear, and has the power to conjure up life itself." ~ Luigi Russolo

Inspired by Luigi Russolo's 1913 manifesto L'Arte dei Rumori, or The Art of Noises, this album merges digital samples of his original intonarumori (noise intoners) with traditional instruments and sounds, incorporating the conventional elements of rhythm, melody, and harmony, in structured and improvised settings, across several fusion music genres.

Composition Notes

Into The Land Of Chimeras

"I believed that I was approaching the end of my days without having tasted to the full any of the pleasures for which my heart thirsted... without having ever tasted that passion which, through lack of an object, was always suppressed. [...] The impossibility of attaining the real persons precipitated me into the land of chimeras; and seeing nothing that existed worthy of my exalted feelings, I fostered them in an ideal world which my creative imagination soon peopled with beings after my own heart." ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Not widely known, Rousseau made several contributions to Classical music, not only as a composer, but also as a developer of a musical notation system, and as an important theorist, introducing the notion that the free expression of a creative person is more important than the strict adherence to traditional rules and procedures, that would later become a characteristic of the Romantic period.

This solo piece is a companion to Echoes Of The Invisible World from Volume 1, featuring a MIDI bass guitar triggering a blend of effected samples of Russolo's arco enarmonico and gorgogliatore with an eclectic mix of conventional string instruments, that together sound like an enigmatic fusion of electric violin, musical saw, and theremin.

The effects chain is radically different for this composition to symbolize chimerical fabrications of the mind.


Cells Of Awareness

"Each of us, a cell of awareness, imperfect and incomplete
Genetic blends with uncertain ends on a fortune hunt that's far too fleet "
~ Neil Peart, Freewill

The heart of this track is a leftover from the Xenosonic Journeys sessions, which incorporated both ambient and electronic dance music genres to my world fusion compositions, for the first time.

I added myriad cells - meaning rhythmic and melodic fragments/segments that develop into figures, motifs, or themes - to the original bed tracks, using Russolo's crepitatore and ronzatore disguised through various effects, and played through keyboards and MIDI bass guitar.


Consumed From Within

An improvised solo bass guitar piece employing a split signal: a direct input, drenched in distortion and overdrive; and a MIDI input triggering samples of a distorted electric guitar blended with fragments of several intonarumori, featuring the arco enarmonico.

The result is an abrasive, harsh, wall of noise tapestry that makes one of Nigel Tufnel's trademark solos sound like "elevator music".


Incubo Indicibile

The title translates to "Untold Nightmare", which suits this dark, disturbing, atmospheric piece that began as a leftover from the Obumbratio - Volume 2 sessions.

Leaving the original file intact, I sprinkled several effected fragments of intonarumori throughout the submix as rhythmic and harmonic elements, and added vocal effects inspired by the sixth chapter of Russolo's manifesto L'Arte dei Rumori, that outlines the noises of language (consonants), where he wrote about "... all the noises made [...] by the mouth of man without resorting to speaking or singing."


Acolytes Of Summanus

"They attribute daytime thunderbolts to Jupiter, and ones at night to Summanus." ~ Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia

The primary tracks were leftovers from the Global Resonances sessions, inspired by two of my favorite drummers/percussionists, Ginger Baker and Michael Shrieve - specifically, their ethnic-influenced arrangements.

As above, I left the original ideas intact, and added layers of effected fragments of Russolo's gracidatore, ronzatore and scoppiatore, and then fades at both ends of the final mixdown during post-production.

Since I completed it late at night, during a thunderstorm, a reference to the Etruscan/Roman god of nocturnal thunder seemed appropriate.


A Powerful Solace

"The thought of suicide is a powerful solace: by means of it, one gets through many a bad night." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

This duet features a MIDI bass guitar triggering guitar samples with effects - a leftover from the Mystic Gleams sessions - fused with keyboards using fragments of samples from Russolo's arco enarmonico.


Anarchia Nell'Alveare

The title translates to "Anarchy In The Beehive", an extremely rare event in honeybee colonies, that are usually seen as an epitome of harmony and social order, despite their violent practices, including infanticide.

The collapse of their society can begin with hordes of worker bees, who are sterile, abandoning their regal duties, and going berserk trying to reproduce. By focusing all their energy solely into laying eggs, to the point of not feeding themselves, the colony is doomed to anarchy.

Like Consumed From Within, this is an improvised solo bass guitar piece, with two differences: the Russolo samples featured are the crepitatore and ululatore, and the overall piece has more textural parts.


A Tiger Into Lustre

"The living self has one purpose only: to come into its own fullness of being, as a tree comes into full blossom, or a bird into spring beauty, or a tiger into lustre." ~ D.H. Lawrence

The origins of this piece date to 2005, during the Sphere Of Influence sessions. Having more than enough compositions available, and two tracks that already included samples of animals (lions and wolves), I placed this aside.

Like the other re-purposed arrangements on this album, the original ideas of a tiger growling "melody" over an African & Indian-influenced percussion track, were left intact. I added some melodic and rhythmic noise-oriented elements, via keyboards, using real-time manipulation of effects.

No intonarumori - or tigers - were harmed during the production of this piece.


A Hot And Windy August Afternoon

"A hot and windy August afternoon
Has the trees in constant motion
With a flash of silver leaves
As they're rocking in the breeze"
~ Neil Peart, The Analog Kid

In the fourth chapter of his Futurist manifesto, The Art of Noises, that focuses on the noises of nature and life, Luigi Russolo wrote: "The wind that sometimes howls in ascending and descending passages within a range that does not exceed a fifth and continues with this variation as a low arpeggio, sometimes instead hurls itself up on high, where it comes to rest on a long and persistent whistling." and "Sometimes the wind directs, dominates, and gives its own rhythm to the roar of water [...]"

Over a decade ago, I made several field recordings at/near my house, including this one of wind chimes, attached on a maple tree branch, hanging over the Concord River, on a hot and windy afternoon... in late July... hey, close enough.

This is an edited version of the original file, which clocked in at over ten minutes.


Un Ottimismo D'Acciaio

"Sento la materia del mio cuore trasformarsi, metalizzarsi, in un ottimismo d'acciaio." ~ Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

An odd pairing that features a similar bass guitar setup as Consumed From Within, with keyboards playing dark ambient themes, leftover from the Obumbratio sessions.

The result is a piece that tries to blend the disparate elements of harsh noise with meditation music, inspired by Marinetti's quote: "I feel the matter of my heart being transformed, metalized, in an optimism of steel."

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti initiated the Futurismo movement in February 1909 by publishing his literature-oriented manifesto in La Gazzetta dell'Emilia, a newspaper in Bologna, Italy.

The following year, he encountered Luigi Russolo, and both men became central figures of Futurism, with its principal aim to revolutionize art and culture by embracing the energy and motion of that era's modern machinery, while rejecting the habits and traditions of the past.


Sulla Strada Per Adrianopoli

"ogni 5 secondi cannoni da assedio sventrare spazio con un accordo ZANG-TUMB-TUUMB ammutinamento di 500 echi per azzannarlo sminuzzarlo sparpagliarlo all'infinito." ~ Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

This companion piece to Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes, from Volume 1, was inspired by Marinetti's famous sound poem Zang Tumb Tumb that uses parole in libertà - "words-in-freedom", a type of creative typography - to recount The Siege of Adrianople, during the First Balkan War, which he witnessed as a correspondent for the French newspaper L'Intransigeant, in 1912-1913.

This work is quoted in Russolo's manifesto, The Art of Noises, which also includes an entire chapter devoted to the noises of war, including the passage: "Artillery, when still out of range, is announced only by a distant murmur, exactly like thunder."

Instrumentation for this arrangement includes MIDI bass guitar, keyboards, and synthesizers - triggered via MIDI bass pedals - playing various analog and digital loops, one-shots, and samples, including a few intonarumori with effects to sound like "siege cannons gutting space with a chord [...] 500 echoes scattering it to infinity."


Mobilis In Mobili

"Several times, during various lulls of wind and sea, I thought I heard indistinct sounds, a sort of elusive harmony produced by distant musical chords." ~ Jules Verne, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea

The motto of the fictional Nautilus, and its captain, Nemo, the title usually translates to "moving in a moving thing", or "changing through the changing medium".

This piece features Russolo's arco enarmonico over a complex synthesizer bed, with both instruments making extensive use of consonance and the whole-tone scale, which are direct opposites of atonality and the chromatic scale - favorites of Futurist musicians (as pointed out in next track's quote).

I thought it would be interesting to use a symmetrical scale, as its augmented sound is distinct and ambiguous enough to work well within this avant-garde project.


Crescit Eundo

"We Futurists proclaim as progress and as a victory of the future the chromatic atonal mode, the research and realization of the enharmonic mode." ~ Francesco Balilla Pratella, Technical Manifesto of Futurist Music

The title can be translated to "increases (or grows) as it goes", with the track featuring a bass guitar, in a similar effects/intonarumori setup as Consumed From Within, that increases in speed and grows in volume as it goes through a three octave ascent.

A brutal piece of noise-music that would have made the hair on Lemmy Kilmister's mutton chops fall off.


A Storm On An Impetuous Course

A companion to Penelopae Telam Retexens, from Volume 1, this is another improvised solo bass guitar piece employing the same split signal and intonarumori, this time sounding like a rain and ice storm raging through a desolate landscape.


All My Nerves Are Naked Wires

"All my nerves are naked wires
Tender to the touch
Sometimes super sensitive
But who can care too much?"
~ Neil Peart, Scars

Yet another improvised solo piece, but for this track, I am only using a MIDI bass guitar playing a blend of overdriven electric guitar samples, and fragments of intonarumori - arranged as a chromatic instrument, and played with a "tender touch".

The emphasis is more on melody and harmony than rhythm and noise, all within an A Major tonal center.


Swelling Sails Beneath The Stars

"The music enchanted the air. It was like the south wind, like a warm night, like swelling sails beneath the stars, completely and utterly unreal… It made everything spacious and colourful, the dark stream of life seemed pulsing in it; there were no burdens any more, no limits." ~ Erich Maria Remarque

This duet features Russolo's arco enarmonico, gorgogliatore, and ululatore samples triggered through MIDI bass guitar, and keyboards playing dark ambient bed tracks that were mostly leftovers from the Obumbratio sessions.


Atavistic Relics

"Everyone knows from experience how a dreamer will transform one piercing sound, for example, that of a bell, into another of quite a different nature, say, the report of cannon. [...] In the dream this atavistic relic of humanity manifests its existence within us, for it is the foundation upon which the higher rational faculty developed itself and still develops itself in every individual. Dreams carry us back to the earlier stages of human culture and afford us a means of understanding it more clearly." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human

The finale is a fusion of the primary ideas from Into The Land Of Chimeras and Kinetic Dreams, from Volume 1.

The main section of this composition is another high-energy, rhythmic, Goa trance-influenced submix that was leftover from the Xenosonic Journeys sessions.

The lead instrument, just like the leadoff track, is a MIDI bass guitar triggering a blend of effected samples of Russolo's arco enarmonico and gorgogliatore with an eclectic mix of traditional string instruments.

I also added an intro and an outro, like some of my past world fusion arrangements, to come up with one of the most interesting East-meets-West hybrids I have ever produced.