Gruppo NPS

The NPS - Nuove proposte Sonore (New Sound Proposals) Group was founded in Padua (Italy) in 1964 by the composer Teresa Rampazzi together with the visual artist Ennio Chiggio. Working with analogical devices they produced some of the most compelling electronic music of the period, and they soon became one of the most reputed electronic music centers in Italy, together with the S 2 FM by Pietro Grossi in Florence and the SMET by Enore Zaffiri in Turin. With the departure of Chiggio, the years 1969-1970 tranformed it in a female-only collective (Teresa Rampazzi, Serenella Marega and Patrizia Gracis). The two periods were characterized by different instrumentation, and it is surprising how they were able to achieve great results with some simple means. At least in the beginning. In the first period they used a couple of two-tracks tape recorders (Sony 777 and Sony 521), an EICO low frequency generator, a radio station to produce long wavelengths frequencies, a mixer, an oscillator, a Revox, and a self-built loudspeaker. They had to use the stairwell as an echo chamber. In the second one, when the studio was more established, they had six manually-controlled oscillators as well as six modulated ones, a white noise generator, an octave-band filter and a variable one, an amplitude modulator, a noteswitch, a reverb, a 10-channels mixer, a unit for audio signal routing, four tape recorders, a stereo sound system and a frequency meter (during the last years they also bought a 2500 ARP synthesizer). This deluxe LP edition presents the group’s compositions for the first time ever.