“As one might expect that with a title like “The Absent Universe,” it’s a spare album, its pleasures revealed through careful listening rather than quick snippets, but not a single note or gesture feels out of place.”
“Luciano Cillio (sic) seems to have released an album almost by accident, spirited away from him as he slept.” So wrote Jim O’Rourke in the liner notes for a limited edition reissue of an album made in 1977 by an obscure Italian musician composer named Luciano Cilio back in 2004. It was the lone album that Cilio ever released, and he took his own life in 1983, at the age of 33. It’s not a casual assessment by O’Rourke, as it actually suggests the deep level of intimacy of Cilio’s sound.
That reissue reinforced that closeness. Originally entitled Dialoghi Del Presente (translation “Dialogues of the Present”) but retitled Dell’Universo Assente (“The Absent Universe”), it looked like a blank white cover. Only when held in your hands and inspected closely did the near-invisible cover image appear, a hand-drawn spiral in light silver ink.
Originally published by Pitchfork.Read it on Pitchfork