Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza ‎– Musica Su Schemi

I found the book, Magnificent obsessions. Persol, cinema and craftsmanship today (details here). It contains great photos of Ennio Morricone that are new to me. There he is, the man with the horn, the avant-mainstream maestro, maker of both soundtracks that even cloth-eared idiots know and member of Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. I can't think of another musician who's suceeded in such extremes of music. Perhaps you can 'cause you're smarter than me.

So I've got the book and I'm on the bus home flicking through the latest edition of The Wire when I come across a review of  Musica Su Schemi because it's been reissued by Superior Viaduct. So that's my excuse for featuring it here. If you don't know G.I.N.C's music this album might be a better place to start. Saying that, I don't mean to underestimate your ability to take in purely improvised music, honest. Don't get me wrong, my collection's not packed with free-form avant-garde sounds featuring players tooting and hooting as they feel like it - no sir.

Since there's no immediate wow factor here you have to allow it to worm it's way into your brain. To do so, I suggest you put it on repeat and get on with whatever you want to do...the ironing...washing up...writing that post-modern non-linear novel you keep saying you'll write...whatever. You know the score...there isn't one, although I read that G.I.N.C use chess 'to define key parameters of their music' - the brainiacs! If that seems to promise studiously technical compositions the actual results are anything but. 'Omaggio A Giacinto Scelsi', in particular, grows organically from a quietly ominous drone into a dark vortex which sucks in your soul and spits it out again, fully nourished yet not quite sane.