Both responsible for some of the most beguiling releases in recent memory, Tomoko Sauvage brings her porcelain bowls, water sounds and array of hydrophones to Francesco Cavaliere’s dreamlike staging in ‘Viridescens’ for an utterly spellbinding suite that transcends the sum of its parts.
Both artists draw each other out of themselves and on to a shared plane of surreality, with Cavaliere opting to omit his usual vocals but still infuse his playfully oneiric spirit, while Sauvage’s elemental sounds feel unusually magnified and part of a far plusher ecology of environmental recording. The duo point to influences ranging from Henning Christiansen’s Green Music on a conceptual level, and a lineage of environmental music from Walter Tilgner to Knud Viktor and the likes of Kankyo-Ongaku and Hiroshi Yoshimura, and we can also hear analogs everywhere from Dolphins Into The Future’s field recording sojourns to Ora Clementi’s ambient inceptions or the liminal zones of Elodie.
Anyone previously snagged by either of their solo works will surely recognise the emergence of structures new to either of their oeuvres developing from the stroked bells of ‘a man with a green hat’ to the spikier, overgrown variegation of ‘Rainforest Synthesis’, with ‘≒ AO (blue light is green)’ finding tantalising new interstices of quietude that make the the album’s 9 minute standout ‘Twin Emerald Dolphins’ appear intoxicatingly lush in relief.
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Marrionette, 2021
Francesco Cavaliere (b. 1980 Piombino, Italy) is known for the sensitivity with which he combines sounds, materials and space, His works are capable of enlivening his listeners’ inner states in an imaginative journey populated by ephemeral presences, phenomena generated by glass, minerals and voices recorded using analogue and digital technologies. First introduced to the world through the tape "Neverending Somersault,” is the author and interpreter of the "Gancio Cielo" audio stories, released as a full length LP on the label Hundebiss (IT).
“The basis for Cavaliere’s music is derived from the prowess of his imagination, which at a young age was stimulated by a gift, given to him by his grandma. “At a very young age, my grandmother, who was a music teacher, gave to me a cassette record player. And as I was an only-child, I would sit in my room alone, and have conversations with the record player and my pre recorded voice. I communicated with it.” (Spencer Clark)
Tomoko Sauvage, Japanese musician and artist active since mid 2000’s, investigates the sculpturality of sound and improvisation in relation to the environment. Mainly known for a musical / visual research about ‘natural synthesizer’ of her invention, composed with diverse fluid, bowls, ceramic, light and underwater amplification, Sauvage’s approach is attached to questions of alchemy, meditation and balance between hazard and mastery. Under the form of performances, installations and musical compositions, her work is regularly presented in Europe, Asia and America. Her second solo album "Musique Hydromantique" was released on Shelter Press in October 2017.
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