Giovanni Venosta

Giovanni Venosta’s Olympic Signals, is one of the great lost documents of the Italian avant-garde - the first solo outing from one of the movement’s seminal voices, most recognised for his collaborative work with Roberto Musci. In a sea of unjustly neglected works, Venosta’s debut rises from the tide time as a towering gesture of sonic creativity. A shimmering, complex wonder of overwhelming Minimalistic beauty. One of the great records of the 1980’s, that almost no one heard.

Recorded 1984, Olympic Signals rests firmly within the Italian movement of musical Minimalism, one of the 20th century’s most remarkable, diverse, complex, and overlooked collective efforts in organised sound. Built around tightly entwined, repetitive, cycling piano and synthesiser tones, shifting between resonance and dissonance, Venosta’s effort flirts with, and undermines the broad vision of what this music is seen to be - inconvenient truths, buried in kernels of deceptive beauty. While unquestionably singular, it holds historical distinction as the foundation of the creative partnership which would come to define both Venosta and Musci’s careers - conceived as a partial response to the later’s stunning debut The Loa of Music, and including contributions by him on sampler and tape. Olympic Signals is the long unrecognised mirror, to its more famous peer.

Rigorous, startling, and incredibly rewarding, Olympic Signals is a lost piece in the puzzle. Yet another entry in Soave’s remarkable dedication to the history of the Italian avant-garde. A resurrection and long overdue offering of justice, not only to an incredibly work, but to the understanding of late 20th century music at large. Absolutely stunning on every count.