Claudio Rocchetti - "The Work Called Kitano"

Definitely one of the most interesting and mature releases to have come out of the Italian experimental electronic scene this year, "The work called Kitano" is a rich and tasty cd which could equally enthrall fans of impro-jazz, electroacoustics and turntablism. Rocchetti (with a background in straight edge hardcore and in digital terrorism dj'ing as a member of the Sonic Belligeranza collective) manipulates clusters of upright bass improvisations ("Existenz"), samples loops and cd skips ("Burned"), concrete noises ("eleven AM"), quiet piano passages, merging them in complex collages which seems to be run through by some strange fever. I believe the main strength of this work lies - besides its show of taste and compositional ability - in its evocative power, passing from nostalgia ("Petra von Kant") to all-out paranoia ("Lovesong") to subcutaneous anxiety ("eleven AM", "my love was sitting on the mortician's knees"), more often than not within the same track. There's often a sense of dusty past, of things forgotten suddenly re-vitalized but in a kind of ambiguous "detournement" - something I often feel when listening to Jeck's or Schaefer's turntablism tours-de-force. This ability to suggest atmospheres and emotional views prevents the experiments to become dull and self-assured, the state of tension is permanently kept. Even in its quietest moments, a sudden, concrete intervention - even minimal - comes like an unexpected crack to suggest that even that peace was a façade. And memory is like the main, uncredited instrument of this work.

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