Not Waving – Voices
Last year Alessio Natalizia issued a series of three self-released Voices cassettes under his Not Waving moniker exploring harsh textural abrasions, tape manipulated field recordings and ‘80s industrial music chic. Non-musical influences are said to have played a part too, referencing neurologist Oliver Sacks, social philosopher B.F. Skinner and Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov. It’s far removed from the cosmic leanings of his more renowned project Walls (with Sam Willis) which disbanded earlier this year, or the slow-mo pop-inflections of his former solo project Banjo or Freakout. In only in a few years he has deviated drastically from the sensibilities laid out with those.
The majority of tracks from those cassettes have been compiled on this double LP and represent the breadth of the Not Waving project, delving into even more transgressive territory than seen on Human Capabilities, released last year on Stuart Leath’s Emotional Response. Natalizia sure has a penchant for drifting, lo-fi electronics and an uncanny ability to summon the ghost in the machines. Take for instance the bluntly titled “Not Feasible Certainly Impractical” where a chugging movement of machinery slugs away, contradicting an exotic tribal chant; warped and degraded from the tape source from where we can only guess he sourced it. It’s this aesthetic which pervades what is on offer here. And truth be told it can be quite challenging at intervals.
But it’s the moments of stunning simplicity which are the most impressive. On “It Needs No Meditation” a simple arpeggio is run through an echo, while tape delays imitate birds chirping in the park; background hiss providing the ambience, perhaps unintentionally, and it’s terrific. “No Kill” follows through with the same audacity; a simple metronome like groove provides movement while a chiming melody slowly evolves. These scenes of freeform, cross genre improvisations or the just plain uncategorized, are interspersed with the dark soundscapes of “Creating Capabilities” and the breathtaking drama on the imaginary soundtracks of “To Eliminate” and “Disembodied”.
Also worthy of mention, by stark contrast, are the moments of sheer intensity such as on “The Behaviourist Approach” which inducing a state of trance with its pummeling arpeggio, morphing into gritty acid beneath a psychology derived monologue. “Excesses” stands out too, with its sci-fi drone washing over, building in feedback while its furious tom drums generate a wall of threatening sub-bass. If there wasn’t enough diversity on display, you then have tracks like “Body Image” and “Act of Memory” which take on the dry, cold mechanics similar to early industrial sounds of apparent influence Daniele Ciulini (whose retrospective he released on Natalizia’s Ecstatic imprint earlier this year) channeling such early nostalgic impressions quite convincingly.
It’s the soul in the circuitry that Natalizia went in search of. He found it. In these redundant devices, known for their harsh and unpredictable character, the grainy, degraded and frazzled timbres they generate have taken on a new form; a new beauty. Collectively they are snapshots of his progress with the project that is organically evolving. Previews of new Not Waving material scheduled for release on Powell’s Diagonal label suggest a more advanced, dancefloor friendly phase of his career. Somehow all the disparate influences from psychotherapy, philosophy and neurology, seems to have come together cohesively.
Nic Tuohey
Tracklisting:
A1. Publically Observable
A2. Witzelsucht
A3. Not Feasable Certainly Impracticle
A4. A Part Of Thought
A5. It Needs No Meditation
B1. The Behaviourist Approach
B2. No Kill
B3. Body Image
B4. Dangerously Well
C1. Act Of Memory
C2. Creating Capabilities
C3. Negative Reinforcement
C4. To Eliminate
D1. Excesses
D2. Feeling Tone
D3. Disembodied
D4. Orange Juice For The Ear
D5. Voices