Hello, lot's a big things going on on the 19th of May, there was the Zokolan, a monsterclimb in the Giro, which saw the rebirth of Chris Froome, he was ecstatic, behind him the current leader, a guy that can feed of two bodies being an identical twin and Dumoulin last years winner is still very much in the running, spectular week coming up there. Then there were 3 cupfinals, in Scotland Celtic was expected to win and they did, but England and Germany saw a surprise Man United were the favorite but once again Mourinho's attack proved impotent, Conte and Chelsea said thank you we'll have that FA Cup, in Germany Bayern were supposed to over run Frankfurt, but there their new Bayern coach had devised a well organised counter attack and Bayern without Robben just didnt find enough room to score more.
But all this were just side events for the big mediaworld, there was an elite wedding that needed the full attention of the public. The people in question are as it happens very nice, although the bride had been so not my type in the TV series Suits, in real life she seemed much nicer even though clearly dominant over her future husband, but then he stems from a family with dominant female presence. Anyway the happy couple are expected to make babies and spread love and equality over the globe specially in the former colonies, and 'en passant' make brexit an success. I wish them good luck, the'll need it.
Today's artist, for the fourth and final time, 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.
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. 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 that year. In 2014 “Mutations” , the second Obake album, came out harvesting incredible reviews and appearances in major festivals. As well Osso, his new band with Morkobot.
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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Simm is to chill-out what Tool are to hardcore metal -- that is a more oppressive, self-hating variation that works towards progressive art rock. Simm's music is closest to Tricky's Nearly God trip-hop in practice, with stark intellectual environments, intensely controlled samples -- perhaps one or two elements per song -- and a soiled production
It has been 8 years since Eraldo Bernocchi last released an album under the Simm moniker, and his return to producing sleek, dark, horror inspired Down-tempo/Dubstep/slow BPM music is nothing short of fantastic. The Visitor is a powerful, masterfully crafted soundtrack of vengeance and reprisal - emerging from darkness to strike unseen, a force unrecognizable to it's enemies. For those who enjoy Scorn and Balkansky, Simm is the more suave and sophisticated take on the low tempo, bass heavy paradigm. Bernocchi's constructed horror atmospheres and deformed samples alongside his trademark treated guitars align mesmerizingly over futuristic Down-tempo beats and silk smooth bass.
SIMM - Visitor (flac 297mb)
01 Leatherface 5:39
02 Visitor 5:58
03 The Wind Is Blowing 6:28
04 Crematorium 5:42
05 Revenge Is Faith 4:22
06 The Sadness Of Things 6:00
07 Herezie 4:56
08 Retribution 5:28
09 Sky Eater 6:08
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The guitars grind and burn, writhe and churn on the downtuned ‘Seven Rotten Globes’ that heralds the arrival of Obake’s second long player. The influences of Melvins and Sabbath are in evidence as they blast out primal fury hewn from the murky dawn of metal. They slow things to a crawl, the riffs strung out and left to simmer atmospherically. The dark and horrorific viaticum, which can be perceived from the very beginning, is broadly defined as completion in Transfiguration, whose aberrant intro, offers the preamble to a rhythmic and enveloping sound structure. An absence of air that brings the redundant stoner sound to cross the horizons of the genre, thanks to inlays expressive and decadent sound. A perfect track, not only thanks to the evocative versatility of Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, but also thanks to the sound divergences, which overlay a perfect drum set in its being. The catacomb and rarefied outro redefines the expressive echoes, dragging the listener towards a filmic nightmare, from which it is difficult to come out.‘Thanatos’ brings a smoky shroud of darkness before ‘Second Death of Foreg’ descends deeper into the smouldering abyss, evoking esoteric mysticism and mythology. It’s a mighty album of epic proportions and appropriate weight. Heavy, and then some....
Obake - Mutations (flac 286mb)
01 Seven Rotten Globes 4:27
02 Seth Light 5:31
03 Transfiguration 6:00
04 Thanatos 5:18
05 Second Death of Foreg 6:16
06 Burnt Down 4:10
07 M 6:25
08 Infinite Chain 6:07
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Over the last 60 years, East Meets West recordings have become somewhat commonplace in creative music. With Invisible Strings, guitarists Eraldo Bernocchi and Prakash Sontakke add a remarkable entry to a long list. Bernocchi is virtually unclassifiable as a musician, composer, and producer. .
Bernocchi's lap steel guitar playing is the prime melodic force on these nine pieces and reflects the influences of Carnatic music, Bollywood, spaghetti western soundtracks, and the melodic improvisation tradition. Bernocchi plays baritone and electric guitars and electronics. He places his abundant abilities in service to Sontakke's labyrinthine harmonic creations. Ambient music informs each of these tracks, but the emphasis of percussion and haunted lyricism adds quiet drama that creates depth and heft, not merely ethereality. Pronounced plodding beats, strummed chords, and interplay between baritone and steel guitars are hallmarks in the foreboding "The Last Emperor Walked Alone." "From Star to Star," with its wordless choral vocal samples in the intro and syncopated layers of dubby rhythmic pulses, frames an active conversation between the guitarists in subtle, sweet yet poignant melodies that possess a song-like architecture. "Bangalor Electric" offers pronounced electronic snare beats and breaks atop hypnotic electric fingerpicked guitar vamps as Sontakke punctuates and paints them. The use of digital delay, drum and bass beats, and baritone guitar basslines on "Purple Yello" offers an elegant freneticism for the lap steel; Sontakke decorates sparsely but effectively. Taken as a whole, it offers the sound of motion looking past itself. Its sonic landscape circles wider with each pass until it swallows everything in its path to become a solitary, nearly exultant voice. The imagination at work on Invisible Strings is revelatory. These two men use only what its necessary to communicate and create musical "stories" that resonate far beyond each track's prescribed length. Each selection maintains a distinct identity that contributes to the seamless flow of the whole. The music balances cinematic qualities while remaining subjectively intimate. This 21st century addition in the East Meets West canon acts not only as a shining example of what is possible when two open-minded talents from different cultures enter into creative dialogue, but as a complete realization of said encounter's potential.
Eraldo Bernocchi, Prakash Sontakke - Invisible Strings (flac 245mb)
01 The Last Emperor Walked Alone
02 Will You Stay
03 From Star To Star
04 The Invisible Ferry
05 Sublime Skies
06 Bangalor Electric
07 Purple Yellow
08 Walking Backwards Again
09 The Unsaid
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"In Praise Of Shadows" is a massive collaboration album by Italy's legendary producer Eraldo Bernocchi and Japanese dark ambient mastermind Manabu Hiramoto of Shinkiro. The music weaves dark electronics and industrial dub with heavy atmosphere. The 8 tracks based on a concept of the traditional Japanese aesthetics inspired by Junichiro Tanizaki's essay, beautifully contrasted light and shadow, stillness and motion with using modern technology and various musical compositions.
Eraldo Bernocchi, Shinkiro - In Praise of Shadows (flac 271mb)
01 Fluorescent Memories 5:57
02 Shadow Ghosts 4:30
03 A Scene Of Kaleidoscopic Changes 5:09
04 Old Man Looking At A Window 5:41
05 Bloody Footsteps On A Ceiling Temple 7:11
06 Hikari 5:20
07 City Vultures 4:41
08 Black Magic Train 8:30
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But all this were just side events for the big mediaworld, there was an elite wedding that needed the full attention of the public. The people in question are as it happens very nice, although the bride had been so not my type in the TV series Suits, in real life she seemed much nicer even though clearly dominant over her future husband, but then he stems from a family with dominant female presence. Anyway the happy couple are expected to make babies and spread love and equality over the globe specially in the former colonies, and 'en passant' make brexit an success. I wish them good luck, the'll need it.
Today's artist, for the fourth and final time, 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
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
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.
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. 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 that year. In 2014 “Mutations” , the second Obake album, came out harvesting incredible reviews and appearances in major festivals. As well Osso, his new band with Morkobot.
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.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Simm is to chill-out what Tool are to hardcore metal -- that is a more oppressive, self-hating variation that works towards progressive art rock. Simm's music is closest to Tricky's Nearly God trip-hop in practice, with stark intellectual environments, intensely controlled samples -- perhaps one or two elements per song -- and a soiled production
It has been 8 years since Eraldo Bernocchi last released an album under the Simm moniker, and his return to producing sleek, dark, horror inspired Down-tempo/Dubstep/slow BPM music is nothing short of fantastic. The Visitor is a powerful, masterfully crafted soundtrack of vengeance and reprisal - emerging from darkness to strike unseen, a force unrecognizable to it's enemies. For those who enjoy Scorn and Balkansky, Simm is the more suave and sophisticated take on the low tempo, bass heavy paradigm. Bernocchi's constructed horror atmospheres and deformed samples alongside his trademark treated guitars align mesmerizingly over futuristic Down-tempo beats and silk smooth bass.
SIMM - Visitor (flac 297mb)
01 Leatherface 5:39
02 Visitor 5:58
03 The Wind Is Blowing 6:28
04 Crematorium 5:42
05 Revenge Is Faith 4:22
06 The Sadness Of Things 6:00
07 Herezie 4:56
08 Retribution 5:28
09 Sky Eater 6:08
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The guitars grind and burn, writhe and churn on the downtuned ‘Seven Rotten Globes’ that heralds the arrival of Obake’s second long player. The influences of Melvins and Sabbath are in evidence as they blast out primal fury hewn from the murky dawn of metal. They slow things to a crawl, the riffs strung out and left to simmer atmospherically. The dark and horrorific viaticum, which can be perceived from the very beginning, is broadly defined as completion in Transfiguration, whose aberrant intro, offers the preamble to a rhythmic and enveloping sound structure. An absence of air that brings the redundant stoner sound to cross the horizons of the genre, thanks to inlays expressive and decadent sound. A perfect track, not only thanks to the evocative versatility of Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, but also thanks to the sound divergences, which overlay a perfect drum set in its being. The catacomb and rarefied outro redefines the expressive echoes, dragging the listener towards a filmic nightmare, from which it is difficult to come out.‘Thanatos’ brings a smoky shroud of darkness before ‘Second Death of Foreg’ descends deeper into the smouldering abyss, evoking esoteric mysticism and mythology. It’s a mighty album of epic proportions and appropriate weight. Heavy, and then some....
Obake - Mutations (flac 286mb)
01 Seven Rotten Globes 4:27
02 Seth Light 5:31
03 Transfiguration 6:00
04 Thanatos 5:18
05 Second Death of Foreg 6:16
06 Burnt Down 4:10
07 M 6:25
08 Infinite Chain 6:07
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Over the last 60 years, East Meets West recordings have become somewhat commonplace in creative music. With Invisible Strings, guitarists Eraldo Bernocchi and Prakash Sontakke add a remarkable entry to a long list. Bernocchi is virtually unclassifiable as a musician, composer, and producer. .
Bernocchi's lap steel guitar playing is the prime melodic force on these nine pieces and reflects the influences of Carnatic music, Bollywood, spaghetti western soundtracks, and the melodic improvisation tradition. Bernocchi plays baritone and electric guitars and electronics. He places his abundant abilities in service to Sontakke's labyrinthine harmonic creations. Ambient music informs each of these tracks, but the emphasis of percussion and haunted lyricism adds quiet drama that creates depth and heft, not merely ethereality. Pronounced plodding beats, strummed chords, and interplay between baritone and steel guitars are hallmarks in the foreboding "The Last Emperor Walked Alone." "From Star to Star," with its wordless choral vocal samples in the intro and syncopated layers of dubby rhythmic pulses, frames an active conversation between the guitarists in subtle, sweet yet poignant melodies that possess a song-like architecture. "Bangalor Electric" offers pronounced electronic snare beats and breaks atop hypnotic electric fingerpicked guitar vamps as Sontakke punctuates and paints them. The use of digital delay, drum and bass beats, and baritone guitar basslines on "Purple Yello" offers an elegant freneticism for the lap steel; Sontakke decorates sparsely but effectively. Taken as a whole, it offers the sound of motion looking past itself. Its sonic landscape circles wider with each pass until it swallows everything in its path to become a solitary, nearly exultant voice. The imagination at work on Invisible Strings is revelatory. These two men use only what its necessary to communicate and create musical "stories" that resonate far beyond each track's prescribed length. Each selection maintains a distinct identity that contributes to the seamless flow of the whole. The music balances cinematic qualities while remaining subjectively intimate. This 21st century addition in the East Meets West canon acts not only as a shining example of what is possible when two open-minded talents from different cultures enter into creative dialogue, but as a complete realization of said encounter's potential.
Eraldo Bernocchi, Prakash Sontakke - Invisible Strings (flac 245mb)
01 The Last Emperor Walked Alone
02 Will You Stay
03 From Star To Star
04 The Invisible Ferry
05 Sublime Skies
06 Bangalor Electric
07 Purple Yellow
08 Walking Backwards Again
09 The Unsaid
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"In Praise Of Shadows" is a massive collaboration album by Italy's legendary producer Eraldo Bernocchi and Japanese dark ambient mastermind Manabu Hiramoto of Shinkiro. The music weaves dark electronics and industrial dub with heavy atmosphere. The 8 tracks based on a concept of the traditional Japanese aesthetics inspired by Junichiro Tanizaki's essay, beautifully contrasted light and shadow, stillness and motion with using modern technology and various musical compositions.
Eraldo Bernocchi, Shinkiro - In Praise of Shadows (flac 271mb)
01 Fluorescent Memories 5:57
02 Shadow Ghosts 4:30
03 A Scene Of Kaleidoscopic Changes 5:09
04 Old Man Looking At A Window 5:41
05 Bloody Footsteps On A Ceiling Temple 7:11
06 Hikari 5:20
07 City Vultures 4:41
08 Black Magic Train 8:30
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Please re-upload SIMM - Visitor.
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