Claudio Rocchetti - The Carpenter

This one's a sinister little thing from two of Italy's finest indie labels. It's halfway between experimental minimal composition and musique concrete, with In Zaire's Rocchetti throwing in guitars, cello, field recordings, piano, electronics, voice and editing, while friends of his chip in with harp, electric guitar, voice and double bass. There's always a lot of hissing and crackling and creaking and cut-up sounds in the foreground, sometimes accompanied by more musical and melodic moments poking their heads out only to fade into the background, like a radio being constantly re-tuned; sometimes allowed to linger and decay so that their smooth tones are juxtaposed with the harsh, shuddering electronic scree that accompanies them. While it's not an easy listen by any stretch of the imagination it never really sits still for long so even at its more lumpen moments it's at least interesting. On 'Numbers' a dull electronic pulse is added unexpectedly and it sounds almost like he's heading into Fuck Buttons territory when it cuts out as abruptly as it began, leaving some astral synth tones and hushed static accompanied by a solo voice as the track gets progressively quieter and the sudden protuberances, mostly lone stabbing bass notes, by default seem more intrusive. There's some echoey field recorded footsteps cranking up the sinister vibes too. Flip it and there's another side of similarly dark vibes. Uneasy listening for sleepless nights.