** 250 copies ** Binding a deep social and political conscious with rigorous musical experimentation, the Brussels based, Italian pianist, performer, composer, Giovanni Di Domenico, delivers Downtown Ethnic Music, the 4th instalment of Die Schachtel’s Decay Music series, focused on inspired contemporary experimental efforts in the ambient, ethereal, and emotively abstract music.
Over the last decade or so, Giovanni Di Domenico has carved a deep path through a diverse number of discrete fields within experimental music, working in various ensembles - Abschattungen, AufHeben, Bonjintan, Cement Shoes, Delivery Health, Going, etc. - as well as producing a discography of critically heralded solo efforts, and intimate collaborations with Jim O'Rourke, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, Akira Sakata, Arve Henriksen, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, Alexandra Grimal, Nate Wooley, Chris Corsano, and others.
Downtown Ethnic Music encounters Di Domenico reimagining the future of urban music, pluming the mysterious and emotive depths of self, to arrive at vision of sonorous utopia, radically divergent from those of the past. Hybridizing numerous forms of musical practice, while making a conceptual nod to Jon Hassell’s notion of the "fourth world”, as well as the cross-temporal transnationalism of Roberto Musci, Aktuala, Futuro Antico, and the Third Ear Band, Di Domenico’s vision of democracy - rendered through the creative metaphors of sound - is a true to life, bristling conflict, as open-ended as it is ordered, and as dramatic and tense as it is beautiful, playful, and refined.
A colorful tapestry of ideas, experiences, histories, and reference points, woven from a pallet of electronics, synthesis, and various acoustic sources - the intervening rhythms of drummer João Lobo, vocals by Pak Yan Lau and Patshiva CIE women choir, the horns of Ananta Roosens and Jordi Grognard, etc. - across the length of Downtown Ethnic Music, the boundaries between idiom, expressive concept, collective, and individual blur, giving way to a visionary, forward-thinking rendering of electroacoustic music, that subtly reminds us of the social and political potential of art.
Seamlessly incorporating bubbling electronic abstraction, sprawling ambience and long tones, throbbing kosmische, acoustic free improvisation, and the human voice, Giovanni Di Domenico’s Downtown Ethnic Music represents a high-water mark in an already astounding career. Issued by Die Schachtel in a one-time edition of 250 copies, pressed to 180g marble vinyl and housed in a pro-printed inner sleeve and jacket, contained in a silk-screen PVC sleeve.
The Decay Music Series
Die Schachtel's Decay Music series was launched by the Milan imprint in late 2019 to highlight inspired contemporary experimental efforts in the ambient, ethereal, and emotively abstract music, which was inaugurated by Vértice’s Besoch Trauma, a hitherto unknown hook-up between industrial pioneer Maurizio Bianchi, Saverio Evangelista (Esplendor Geometrico), and Juan Manuel Cidrón, a rich tapestry of creatively challenging sound - a hypothetical imagining of historic minimalism and ambient music, bred with industrial and punk. Vértice was followed by Stefano Pilia’s In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni, where the respected Italian guitar player/electro-acoustic composer, drifts between experimental electronics, and quietly rustic ambient folk themes. The title was extremely well received and sold out very quickly. It has been repressed in a limited run of 100 copies for this occasion.
As usual with Die Schachtel, the design by Bruno Stucchi/Dinamomilano plays a relevant part in the overall charm of the series. The records are pressed on 180g silver marbled vinyl, and are housed in heavy matt black jacket with special illustrations by contemporary artists, interacting with a silkscreened post-industrial alchemic-looking custom-design typeface, silkscreened on a hi-quality clear pvc sleeve that hosts the jacket.
