Description:	CD on 12K edn of 500
	Format:	CD
	Genre(s):	Experimental / Abstract
	Label:	12k
	Price:	£11.29
	Availability:	In stock. Dispatched in 1 working day.

4
...according to our Ant on 30 July 2009.

The latest 12K release to land here is 'The Gorilla Variations' from Molly Berg + Stephen Vitiello. The story behind this release is that the pair were asked to provide audio for a video instillation that featured a lonely gorilla in a zoo. This CD features the improvised audio that would eventually be edited for the installation. As you can imagine it's quite a somber affair, the subject matter almost brings a tear to my eye. I don't like to think of any living thing as being lonely and the thought of a Gorilla looking sad makes me want to go and give it a big hug... Then it would tear the limbs from my body while my children watched and shriek in horror as their fathers head is torn clean off and tossed to the ground like a discarded coconut. Eventually my body is reduced to a pulp and the scene is a horrendous blood bath.... Meanwhile. This CD sounds very nice indeed, I like the use of voices/ whistling on here, they give it a kind of feeling where emotions can be expressed through voice without language. Laptop, tap, samples and looped guitar together create a gentle and laid back listening experience.

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Sound clips for The Gorilla Variations by Stephen Vitiello & Molly Berg: on CD at Norman Records UK. CD, 12k, 12k2013, £11.29.

What their label says...

This is the first full-length collaborative release by Richmond, VA-based musician and sound artists Molly Berg and Stephen Vitiello. The CD title, The Gorilla Variations came about from a request for a short-soundtrack from Éder Santos, a Brazilian video artist who Vitiello has worked with for 20-years on an uncounted number of projects. For Santos’ recent video installation, Boxing The Game, Éder asked for a 3-minute soundtrack to accompany a video portrait of Idi Amin, a lonely gorilla housed in the Belo Horizonte Zoo.

Molly and Stephen recorded a 40-minute improvisation, straight to a stereo hard disc recorder (no overdubs) with the intention of choosing 3-minutes to send to Santos, the bulk of the material from that session becoming the basis for this CD (Variations 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). The Variations include layers of looped electric guitar, clarinet, voice, whistling and samples played from laptop and from Molly’s Fischer Price cassette player. For Stephen this is a return to playing guitar, the first time in 6-years.

A desire for melody to accompany voice was certainly an impulse to play again, as were recent collaborations with Machinefabriek and with Steve Roden, both of whose use of guitar offered useful reminders of what a nice thing it could be to play again. Additional tracks on the CD were performed, edited and performed again over a period of 6-months, drawing primarily on improvisations but also allowing for healthy doses of editing and processing in post-production. Field recordings from sites in and around Richmond are heard throughout. Recurring characters include the 14-hunting beagles in Stephen’s neighbor’s yard. Throughout, a shared desire to bridge songwriting with soundscape, melody with texture shape the intention of the project.

Stephen Vitiello is an electronic musician and media artist, originally from New York, now based in Richmond, VA. CD releases include Bright and Dusty Things (New Albion Records), Listening to Donald Judd (Sub Rosa), Box Music, a collaboration with Machinefabriek (12k). Forthcoming releases include a CD with Lawrence English for the label Cronica. Vitiello’s sound installations have been presented internationally in exhibitions including the 2002 Whitney Biennial, the 2006 Biennial of Sydney (with artist Julie Mehretu) and Ce qui arrive, curated by Paul Virillio at the Cartier Foundation, Paris.

Molly Berg is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has appeared on recordings by Cracker and Jason Molina.