VITAL WEEKLY #864

SEC_ - Moscaio (CD, Bocian Records 2012)

Entirely 'now' is the music by Sec_ from Italy. It's the name used b Mimmo Napolitano, who is a member of Aspec(t), Weltraum, Endorgan and Strongly Imploded and active as a solo musician as Sec_. He uses a revox tape recorder, computer, no-input feedback, field recordings, radio, microphones and contact microphones. Here we have five part work of which the first version was commissioned by the series "A Short Guide To Becoming-bat" by ORF Kunstradio. I read the text on the cover, but somehow fail to see the relation between insects and the way they communicate with this music. When I say the music is very much 'now', I mean that these days the computer itself is not enough to create music, even when the possibilities are no doubt endless, but added value can be had from the use of analogue means of sound production. It adds a raw edge to the music, a level of danger perhaps. That's what Sec_ does in his music. The computer, both as an instrument in the process of creating music, and as an end stage to micro edit the recordings, plays a vital role in this. Sec_'s music is not careful, nor easy, but also never really noise, although at times it can become quite loud. Sec_ clever uses the montage techniques found in the analogue terrain and sometimes knows how to sound like the very early Etant Donnes, no doubt thanks to the use of the revox. Improvisation, musique concrete, noise, electro-acoustic and composition: it's all becoming a blurr in this music and that's alright, I should think. An album in which a lot of information is cramped, even when it only lasts just under thirty-seven minutes. Excellent stuff all around here. If you like what this label does, then this release won't disappoint you either. (FdW)