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Vittorio Nistri / Filippo Panichi — Vittorio Nistri / Filippo Panichi
(Bandcamp Snowdonia Dischi, 2024, CD / LP / DL)

Vittorio Nistri / Filippo Panichi Cover art

Florentine composer Vittorio Nistri, a lover of unusual and complex sounds, has built a creative path of more than 40 years. In this instrumental CD recorded with Filippo Panichi, he ranges from keyboards to percussion, while Panichi plays guitars, synthesizer, and Tibetan bells. The electroacoustic blues of “Maya Deren Blues” is dedicated to a 20th-century Russian filmmaker. In “Secrets,” piano and electronics blend beautifully. “Technical Trials of Solitude,” dominated by strings, closes. This is a record that will linger — light years away from fashions, but also from the self-referential and snobbish avant-garde, the album has already been received in Italy and abroad by many positive, if not enthusiastic, reviews. We are pleased, but above all we feel it is imperative, to add our own. The ideal complement to the disc is the well-made packaging, with a beautiful cover by Beppe Stasi, while Gabriele Menconi provides the other graphics.

by Alessandro Michelucci, Published 2025-05-05

Vittorio Nistri is an Italian keyboardist, electronic explorer, composer, and founder of Deadburger Factory, which we covered back in 2021. Filippo Panichi is an Italian guitarist who has pursued free improvisation performances and electroacoustic experimentation. He has invented and fabricated new instruments (e.g., a set of electrified strings) and uses inaudible found sounds captured with an ultrasonic detector built to track the flights of bats. Together Nistri and Panichi released their first self titled collaboration of experimental instrumentals (sans songs, vocals, bass, drums, or rhythm section) Vittorio Nistri - Filippo Panichi on November 1, 2024. This album is a departure for Panichi due to Nistri’s structured and “ensemble” musical context. They began their process four years ago with an improvised concert without having ever rehearsed before. Today the result is a combination of avant-rock psychedelia, free improv, ambient, noise, and drone music that spans fifty minutes across three LP sides. The packaging is beautiful, from the cover art by Beppe Stasi to the wonderful images by Gabriele Menconi in the 24-page full size booklet that is glued to the inside of the gatefold cover. The booklet contains macro enlargements of Beppe’s cover art along with Italian and English notes about each of the nine tracks. The musical results are very interesting without sounding academic. Rumbles, dissonance, heavy reverb, reversed sounds, and found sounds abound across the tracks, sometimes scary and disconcerting and at other times quite melodic. One track that I find particularly interesting is “Maya Deren Blues” that sounds like slow avant-garde rock-a-billy, making me think of Gene Vincent or Link Wray on downers but with bass clarinet, vibraphone, and clashing guitar. “Maya Deren Blues” approaches music that would find its place on a David Lynch soundtrack. For me, the best track on the album is “Sheriff in Tirasol,” a reference to a football club in Moldova. This instrumental incorporates guest musicians on viola, trombone, and tenor sax along with Nistri and Panichi, as well as a bass riff constructed from individual sampled notes from Hugh Hopper’s performances with Soft Machine. The result sounds like a mixture of Western and urban music with a spooky organ appearing in the middle of the track. All-in-all quite an adventurous undertaking that is sure to please our readership, especially those with a taste for experimental music.

by Henry Schneider, Published 2025-02-16

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Vittorio Nistri / Filippo Panichi

More info
http://snowdonia.bandcamp.com/album/nistri-panichi

 

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