Sandro Mussida & Francesco Fabris – STILL~AEOLIAN

Digital EP out on Room40

Released October 25, 2024

Overview

The inaugural collaboration between lifelong friends, composer & cellist Sandro Mussida and interdisciplinary artist & producer Francesco Fabris, is unveiled in a 20 minute EP, crafted amidst the scenic backdrops of Iceland and Tuscany.

The EP presents in two distinct compositions the result of a process of cross collaboration that initially began with a residency of Tutto Questo Sentire collective, co-hosted by Fabris in Reykjavík in August of 2022 and culminated with a recording session in the hills of the mediaeval town of Lari a year later.

STILL~ continues the work of Mussida around contemplative listening in expanded-form pieces, exploring the propagation of sound in the open field. Immersed in the vast landscape of the Icelandic Highlands, nine juxtaposed synth waves, each of them oscillating with different speed and amplitude, were captured on-site through a unique reamping process during a windy week in the summer of 2022.
~AEOLIAN expands upon the journey of Fabris’ work with natural elements and data sonification procedures, using wind maps of that very summer week as a base for a graphic score that was then performed at the cello. The piece delves deep into the deconstruction of its namesake musical mode in response to the previous composition with the same nine-part layers.

The result of this exchange stems from a foundational core of blind trust and curiosity of one another’s personal approach to music, balanced and enriched by Fabris’ and Mussida’s touch on each other’s scores, somehow enhancing both works simultaneously.

From Sandro Mussida…

Traditional wisdom references trees as transcendental forces and antennas of the divine. For some tribes, trees were means of intercommunication, representing the psychic catalyst between human beings in the domain of dreams. A few years ago, I began to envision invisible threads of waves floating through the air, transparently interconnecting everything. This image has accompanied me since and has inspired Still~ as a tribute to the ethereal domain and the experience of sound in the natural, open field. I have been familiar with Francesco’s skills and artistry for many years, jumping on the occasion to work together on something new without hesitation. After spending a few days in the confined space of the studio, using his modular synthesizers to give the score its voice, we travelled  into the open lands of Iceland to project the audio and listen to it in the precise setting it was meant for.

From Francesco Fabris…

Air is the sole element that reveals itself through the creation of moving images and sounds while never betraying its intrinsically invisible and inaudible nature. Life in Iceland is both defined and dictated by its constant manifestation through the aeolian presence, and it is within this environment that I have been fascinated and influenced by its esotericism, elusiveness and unbridled power. When we ventured into the Highlands, this indomitable force emerged, affecting the movements of the sound waves; yet, the absence of trees and structures within the landscape prevented audible resonance. 
Through this renewed context, I was inspired to give a voice to the wind through diagrams depicting its speed at different altitudes, mirroring and displacing our field experience by relocating its presence to an artificial indoor space. Reconnecting with Sandro’s cello in the Tuscan studio felt as if our distinct visions had merged in our parallel localities, completing the circle we had sketched in Iceland a year prior.