Valerio Tricoli

Miseri Lares

BY Bryon HayesPublished Apr 28, 2014

9
Valerio Tricoli works with sound in such a granular fashion that if it were tangible, it would slide effortlessly through an hourglass. A master of contemporary musique concrète, the Sicilian composer and member of 3/4HadBeenEliminated works with both magnetic tape and digital processes to develop works comprising multiple layers of intricate sonic activity. Miseri Lares, his ambitious sophomore solo release, continues to shed light on Tricoli's deep understanding of sound and its effect on the psyche.

A 77-minute masterwork, the album reveals an emotional depth, rife with moments of dank, unsettling melancholy and charged aggression. Human vocalizing is featured prominently throughout Miseri Lares, whether it be unintelligible glossolalia, snippets of a conversation or guttural blasts of saliva. This sense of the anthropomorphic plays off nicely against the utterly alien textures that underlie the majority of Miseri Lares. It is through this clever balance that Tricoli has created a stable firmament on which to conduct his unique sonic experiments, exploring the outer reaches of sound's potential while managing to craft an extremely listenable album in the process.
(Pan)

Latest Coverage