Sundaze 1817

Hello, the F1 circus is having streetraces in Baku this weekend. Vettel who hadn't been near pole all weekend thusfar maneged to get it when it counts, followed by the Mercedes's and Red Bulls where Ricciardo who won last years chaotic race maneged to outqualify Verstappen who had been the faster of the two until that point, 6th Raikonen was on the fastest lap when a small mistake cost him. Hard to predict the order they will roll over the finish tomorrow.


Today's artist is an Italian guitarist, producer, arranger, sound designer, and experimentalist, and plays in many bands. His musical career commenced during the late '70s, when he played guitar for various independent punk bands. By the mid-'80s, he'd co-founded the ongoing conceptual audio art project Sigillum S (with Paolo Bandera and Luca Digiorgio) that evolved into an internationally celebrated cult act  ....N'joy

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After attending the exclusive High School Scuola Europa and the State University of Milan at the Faculty of Law for three years, he starting to work for a company of electronic engineers who design advanced systems and installations of maximum safety for the Italian government. Eraldo Bernocchi started his career in the late 1970s as a guitarist in independent punk bands. In the mid 1980s, together with Paolo Bandera and Luca di Giorgio, Eraldo co-founded the conceptual audio project Sigillum-S, which grew into a highly acclaimed international cult act and remains the longest running project Bernocchi is involved with.

In the 90s, he and his wife, visual artist Petulia Mattioli, established Verba Corrige Productions, which became the base for a raft of notable audio visual projects and co-operations. During the 1990s and 2000s, he expanded his base of collaborators greatly, both within Italy and throughout the world. Some of these included Mick Harris (Harris releasing Bernocchi's SIMM debut on his own Possible Recs imprint and working with Black Engine as well as two collaborative albums under their names), Almamegretta, Balázs Pándi, Bill Laswell, Colin Edwin, DJ Disk, DJ Olive, Gaudi, Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, Harold Budd, Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, Markus Stockhausen, Nils Petter Molvaer, Professor Shebab, Raiz, Robin Guthrie, Russell Mills, Sensational, Spectre, Thomas Fehlmann, Toshinori Kondo, and Zu (as Black Engine).

In addition to regular work scoring music for adverts and other multimedia projects, he has composed film music for Academy Award winner Gabriele Salvatores and produced numerous art installations with Petulia Mattioli, as well as other artists, including Russell Mills and Harold Budd. He is known for being invited to play and organize several special events for the Dalai Lama in Italy.

In 2008, Bernocchi and music Giacomo Bruzzo founded RareNoiseRecords, a label based in London which aims to showcase a wide range of cutting edge music. The label has since become an important conduit championing several forward thinking and original artists, as well as releasing a number of Eraldo’s own recordings, including ambient guitar duo Parched (with Davide Tiso from Ephel Duath fame), Somma with Nils Petter Molvaer, Bill Laswell, Raiz and Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari), Owls (again with Fornasari and Tony Wakeford), Metallic Taste of Blood (with Colin Edwin from Porcupine Tree, Balázs Pándi and Jamie Saft) and Obake, a doomtronic quartet with Jason Konhen/Bong Ra on bass, Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari and Balázs Pándi.

Notable projects

The project Sigillum S was created on 23 December 1985. It has had, since the beginning, the aim to be totally against the logic of the "band". It was conceived as an open structure in which people could work and research different subjects. Formed by Eraldo Bernocchi (guitars, electronic treatments, voice, and programmation) Paolo Bandera (electronic treatments, bass, and voice) and Luca Di Giorgio (keyboards), the project has always been a double faced creature, mixing together on the same level precise ritual and ethnic aspects with a noisy music.

Since the beginning, Sigillum S had as path to be followed the knowledge and the total war against any kind of limit or taboo, refusing any kind of relationship with political/religious structures. During the first 10 years they toured quite extensively through all Europe and Canada, taking on stage a multimedia attack based on videos, slides and artworks used as a part of the stage. Having pared down along the way to consist of only Eraldo and Paolo as core members, they collaborated with different groups in different situations, like: Ain Soph, The Sodality, Gerstein, Iugula-Thor, Dive, Outoff Body Experience, Team Spam, the sculptor Milo Sacchi, the multimedia/artist PM.Koma and many others.

After a slew of releases through their first 15 years, they released the album Abstraction on Daft Records. This proved to be their last release for a number of years. In 2007, Verba Corrige announced the completion of 23|20, a celebration of the history of Sigillum S. The release was done in two different formats (Digipak CD and gatefold vinyl) featuring different track lists and sequences for each. The release featured all new material and collaborations with artists such as Toshinori Kondo, Bill Laswell, SH Fernando/WordSound, Prof. Shehab/Baboon Records, Martino Nicoletti, Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, the band Zu, Xabier Iriondo, Ephel Duath, various members of Crisis, Mark Solotroff, Thomas Fehlmann, Gudrun Gut, Andrea Marutti, Claudio Agostoni, and many others.

Since the release of 23|20 Sigillum S has continued to perform live, welcoming Luca Di Giorgio back into the fold and adding Petulia Mattioli as a fourth member. Much of their back catalog is now available through Bandcamp with new recordings and archival material forthcoming, both in physical and digital mediums.
Ashes

Ashes was started in 1990 essentially as an Eraldo solo project. The basic idea was to produce works that would be out of context for Sigillum S, as Ashes was a very personal project based on a strong individual introspection. The first release was recorded between 1990 and 1992, finally being released on the newly founded Verba Corrige label. This release, entitled Ashland was based on the guitar treatments, which are often used as a mantra for newly born mind paths. 1996 saw Ashes grow beyond the context of a solo project to include the bass and production of Bill Laswell and vocals of Raiz from Italian group Almamegretta. After a silence of almost 10 years, the project returned with a new album called Unisono, expanding on the core trio to include contributions from Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, Antonio Denti and Paolo Mongardi.

SIMM is a beat and bass oriented project owing a debt to the sound of Mick Harris' Scorn project, whom Eraldo had played a batch of live shows with. The project released one full-length release on Mick Harris' short-lived Possible Recs label as well as a 12" on the same label. Additionally, the moniker provided some tracks for a few compilations from around the same time period. In 2012 it was announced that the long-awaited follow up to Welcome was announced for release by Vital Records. After some production delays and personal issues within the label, the release (Visitor) has now shifted to the OHM Resistance label and has been released October 31, 2013.

The Somma project was conceived by Petulia Mattioli and Eraldo Bernocchi. The concept behind Somma is the real interaction among different cultures with the aim to contaminate and explore ancient traditions connecting new electronic music and technology with jazz, dub, and mantric concepts. Unlike several so called "world music" issues and experiments, Somma (Sacred Order of Magic Music and Art ) aims to have real interaction between different worlds, both sonically and visually. This approach rejects the traditional meaning of the moniker "world music" and avoids ethnic cliches, proposing that each event held be different, where participants will be building a sonic and visual ritual using both ancient and modern tools. Ranging from acoustic to electric to electronic, Somma aims for the creation of new rituals for a contemporary age, the interaction of the sacred and dub, a digital mantra for a new sacred ground.

Entirely improvised, every event/concert of Somma ties together two theoretically distant worlds using interaction between eastern and western musicians who look for a different concert/event for each performance. Tibetan culture is not at all used as a folkloristic or curious event, as too many times happens in the west, but as living part of the creative process. Visuals are also totally improvised and constructed in real time according to what is happening musically on stage to close the circle erasing any difference between past and future.

Since 1996 Bernocchi and Mattioli involved well known New York producer/bass legend Bill Laswell and start to work on the first studio recording of the combo together with 7 Tibetan monks. The album, Hooked Light Rays came out for Low Records, a division of Pete Namlook's Fax label, gaining positive reviews. In 1998 the album was reprinted by Felmay/New Tone an Italian label specialized in traditional/modern musics.

With the encouragement of Musica 90, one of the most renowned booking/production agencies in Europe, Somma's first public appearance took place on November 26, 1996 at Teatro Regio in Torino Italy in front of 1600 people. (Eraldo Bernocchi - treated guitars and electronics, Bill Laswell - bass, Petulia Mattioli - stage design and visuals, Oz Fritz - sound engineering and space dislocations, 7 Tibetan monks - vocals, horns, bells, drums) In 2001, on occasion of the official visit of the Dalai lama, Somma performed in Trento at the Centro Santa Chiara theatre, in front of a gathering 2000 people. Somma continues to grow and expand, most recently playing on May 28, 2007 at Teatro Dal Verme in Milan adding Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, Nils Petter Molvaer and the vocal group Faraualla to the mix. This show received release in 2010 through Eraldo's RareNoise label.

Obake is one of Bernocchi's newer ongoing projects, meant to be the place where the energies of Doom and Drone Metal fuse with ambient electronica, noise, the exactness of math-rock, the groove of blues undercurrents harking back to the dawn of hard-rock and the fluid lyrical delivery and musings of a commanding operatic voice. The initial release on RareNoise consisted of Eraldo Bernocchi and Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, Massimo Pupillo of the group Zu on bass and drummer Balazs Pandi. After some internal shifting (including a short tour with Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3) filling in on bass, new member Jason Köhnen of Bong-Ra fame was announced in 2013 as the permanent bassist with new recordings commencing this year.

In 2007/2008, it was announced that Eraldo and partner Giacomo Bruzzo created a new record label to be based out of the UK, called RareNoiseRecords. The label officially began releasing albums at the end of the first half of 2009. The initial slate of releases kicked off with the debut release of Meditronica – a project by Ashtech and Polcari which also featured the talents of Raiz, Eraldo Bernocchi and Dub Gabriel. Other releases through the end of 2009 include The Mantra ATSMM, a Method of Defiance live album and DVD from 2007 featuring the then line-up of Bill Laswell, Bernie Worrell, Dr. Israel, Toshinori Kondo and Guy Licata, the long-awaited Buckethead side project Death Cube K's Torn From Black Space and Parched, an atmospheric guitar project from Eraldo and Davide Tiso.

As 2010 opened, a live recording of a 2007 show from Somma (held back from 2009 due to perfecting artwork issues) was released and the label released albums and/or EPs by Italian groups Echo and The Mantra ATSMM.

Over the last 2 years the label has expanded its artist and release base, with critically acclaimed releases from Eraldo related groups such as electronica/neo-folk project OWLS (with Tony Wakeford and Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari), Metallic Taste of Blood (Jamie Saft, Colin Edwin and Balazs Pandi) and Obake as well as Eraldo's collaboration with Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie. Aside from Eraldo projects, the label has also released albums by Brainkiller, Bob Belden's Animation, David Fiuczynski, Slobber Pup, InterStatic, Lorenzo Feliciati, Martin Schulte, Mole (Productions) and Naked Truth.

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The project Sigillum S was created on 23 December 1985. It has had, since the beginning, the aim to be totally against the logic of the "band". It was conceived as an open structure in which people could work and research different subjects. Formed by Eraldo Bernocchi (guitars, electronic treatments, voice, and programmation) Paolo Bandera (electronic treatments, bass, and voice) and Luca Di Giorgio (keyboards), the project has always been a double faced creature, mixing together on the same level precise ritual and ethnic aspects with a noisy music.

Since the beginning, Sigillum S had as path to be followed the knowledge and the total war against any kind of limit or taboo, refusing any kind of relationship with political/religious structures. During the first 10 years they toured quite extensively through all Europe and Canada, taking on stage a multimedia attack based on videos, slides and artworks used as a part of the stage. Having pared down along the way to consist of only Eraldo and Paolo as core members, they collaborated with different groups in different situations, like: Ain Soph, The Sodality, Gerstein, Iugula-Thor, Dive, Outoff Body Experience, the sculptor Milo Sacchi, the multimedia/artist PM.Koma and many others.

After a slew of releases through their first 15 years, they released the album Abstraction on Daft Records. This proved to be their last release for a number of years. In 2007, Verba Corrige announced the completion of 23/20, a celebration of the history of Sigillum S. The release was done in two different formats (Digipak CD and gatefold vinyl) featuring different track lists and sequences for each. The release featured all new material and collaborations with artists such as Toshinori Kondo, Bill Laswell, SH Fernando/WordSound, Prof. Shehab/Baboon Records, Martino Nicoletti, Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, the band Zu, Xabier Iriondo, Ephel Duath, various members of Crisis, Mark Solotroff, Thomas Fehlmann, Gudrun Gut, Andrea Marutti, Claudio Agostoni, and many others.

Probably the best their job.  The industrial garments leave the space to an oriental ritualism (as presaged by the title) that accompanies the whole work.  A well done record, atmospheric, dark, ominous, cryptic, hypnotic, nocturnal, ritualistic, sparse, cold, minimalistic, suspenseful, mysterious. Perfect to use as the soundtrack to your haunted house Halloween party.

Sigillum S - Bardo Thos-Grol + Terror Auto-Obstetrics EP  (flac 417mb)

01 Dharmaraja, Skandha, Snang-Ba Yab La Stong-Pa Yum 20:12
02 Nirmanakāya, Sambhogakāya, Tchöd, Yidam 25:48

Terror Auto-Obstetrics EP
01 Terror Auto-Obstetrics 6:00
02 Transkathartick Endoscopy 6:55
03 Suck Inside Thee Ov Bulb 7:53
04 Purulence Peaks, Hairy Knobs, And Death Disturbances 6:50

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This album’s intention is to set nerves on white-ice-fire and to chill you to the heart - and to this end they achieve their aims. The first track, “Mother Sow Giving Birth Under A Lab Balcony” slithers through the speakers like a drugged thug threat, chilling you to the core. “Tox... By Folding The Spine” is a portrait of madness, painted in sound, maniacal laughter, lunatic music, cacophonic noise, all thrown together by some crazed sadist. “Fastened Metempsychosis" is a grating, startling bank of noise. "She Loves Drinking Herself" sounds not unlike Edgard Varese’s “Poeme Electronique” with all the pregnant pauses filled in with something black and pungent “Countless Beauty Survivals” thumps through with a continual metal beat, guitar punctuating while some wind instrument severs reality. “Human Chainsaw’ has bright keyboards which cut through the ears & into the brain,while the vocalist cries out the title in as much agony as we, the listeners feel. “Fingerprints Of Memory lmmortality" is a much more grand piece, huge sweeping keyboards shroud the grey landscape while a synthesized brass sound pierces through to improvise itself into a dozen shaped and positions, before dying in a black cloud of dread. “Emergency Is A Process” is a voice loop speaking the title while instruments scatter & frolic over the top, although nothing here is without some danger. “Allocation And Paradox” again sounds not unlike a metal beat type thing - a darker version of something off Test Dept’s “Beating The Retreat” album, changing direction, turning uncomfortably warm, then chilly with every few moments. “Nevropolis” is next, an unsteady instrumental piece, which threatens to topple & bring the whole structure down. It’s circus music, but from what blighted carnival could this arise, before it finally smooths out into something calmer - blessed relief.  This is a genuinely disturbing album - they managed to create a deep-reaching chill which emanates from the speakers and into your bones. They seem to be good musicians, playing their instruments more for effect than for musical structure. This one should worry the neighbours.

Sigillum S - Cyvertantrick Quantum Leaps    (flac 311mb)

01 Mother Sow Giving Birth Under A Lab Balcony 8:22
02 Tox...By Folding The Spine 3:47
03 Fastened Metempsychosis 1:54
04 4She Loves Drinking Herself 5:15
05 Countless Beauty Survivals 4:20
06 Human Chainsaw 3:44
07 Fingerprints Of Memory Immortality 6:19
08 Emergency Is A Processor 3:39
09 Allocation And Paradox 5:37
10 Nevropolis 7:14

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Started in 1990 as a solo project of Eraldo Bernocchi, Sigillum S founder member. The basic idea was to produce works that would be out of context for Sigillum S, as Ashes is a very personal project, based on a strong individual introspection. After some time it has been developping its own identity, remaining at the same time an open situation. Mainly based on the guitar treatments, which are often used as a mantra for newly born mind paths, Ashes now as its line up. Different musicians are collaborating with; the use of electronics together with the use of natural sounds as stones or stalagmites organs, and acustic instruments as saxophone or violin. Technology used as tool for new environments.

Ashes - Ashland (flac 207mb)

01 Now I Have Three Mouths To Laugh 5:52
02 Ashland 5:59
03 Why Must I Always Say Something 2:18
04 Namib 6:56
05 The War Is Laughing: Beyond Time 6:44
06 Dark Water 3:33
07 A Gift Of Particles 9:46
08 Endless Drug Reflecting 2:57
09 Mirrored Female Multiplying 2:30

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This is a powerful example of slow drum and bass with haunting vocals in Napoletan - Raiz is from that Southern Italy city. The compositions are varied, some clealry DnB and some more pointing to electronic-oriental style. You find some familiar themes in Laswell's production. This is a great example of the artistry of both Laswell and Bernocchi, augmented by the haunting lyrics of Raiz, which will interest the fans of both artists.

Ashes - Corpus (flac 216mb)

01 Shoah 5:02
02 Devozione 5:04
03 Dharma 5:17
04 Unioneillusione 5:23
05 Ambush 5:22
06 Corpus - The Hallway Of Shadows 11:34
07 Tutte Le Acque... 5:23

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