CD & Booklet - Sonic Arts Network
Eclectic and really unusual, these selections by the actor Steward Lee stray (very) far from the current trends of experimental electronica, creating delicate and intense improvisational tensions, eccentric emotions, jumps induced by the restless sounds of Evan Parker's trumpet on a background of field recordings, or by children voices and a country-rock guitar which is just as traditional (for those who are used to very different kinds of dissonance). Sound materials which, around the concepts of 'randomness' and 'chance', make up a very personal topography, documented also by the maps included in the booklet which go hand in hand with every track: a well-engineered pot-pourri elaborating the inspirations of a photo found on a street in Rome, a child playing, mixed with proto-sampling experiments, the notes of a tourist, abandoned somewhere and used as lyrics, FM radio or the not quite crystal-clear voice of Mark E Smith (The Fall, Von Südenfed) who slavishly lists the results of a day of matches in the English soccer championship.
Aurelio Cianciotta