Tip! Atmosphæram inaugurates a new series of hyper-focussed solo studio recordings from Marco Fusinato, each consisting of two side-long pieces exploring noise and feedback, respectively. Documenting his guitar running through an array of distortion pedals amplified by two full stacks made up from his collection of Hiwatt DR103 Heads running at full volume, these recordings capture both the physical immensity and the glittering textural detail of Fusinato’s assaultive approach. Massive amplification becomes an instrument in its own right, a source of sonic possibilities and unexpected acoustic phenomena that Fusinato explores as much as the guitar itself. On the first side, we are hurled into a maelstrom of noise, as Fusinato torments the guitar’s strings with a serrated slide, sending out waves of glissandi and metallic scrape. Aggressively hands-on in its approach, the performance channels the most extreme works of Masayuki Takayanagi, launching a relentless barrage of constantly varying tone and timbre. At times, the swooping slide and feedback tones take on an almost vocal quality, squawking and screaming like Fusinato has transformed himself into a one-man Borbetomagus, before a piercing high tone signals the performance’s abrupt conclusion. The B side finds Fusinato in an equally single-minded exploration of feedback, adding a RE-201 Roland Space Echo unit for each amplifier to the setup.

Like the seminal work of Giacinto Scelsi, this is music su una nota sola, eschewing the hyperactivity of the A side for patient development. For over sixteen minutes, Fusinato dwells inside a single feedback tone, pushing it into microtonal fluctuations and beating patterns, letting it teeter on the brink of collapse, supplementing it with additional pitches yet never leaving it behind. The result is at once relentless and meditative, unfolding the inner life of a note like Scelsi or the spectralists, but amplifying it to the massive volumes and crushing distortion levels of Corrupted.