That Which Is Not – The Basic Sharpness Of Emotions

KrysaliSound

The latest release on KrysaliSound finds two Italian artists, Pier Giorgio Storti and Nicola Fornasari, joining forces as That Which Is Not to produce The Basic Sharpness Of Emotions, a series of contemplative soundscapes on captured through the lonely environs of a distant forest. It has a rarefied feel that puts us way outside human contact, and the slow sway of cello and clarinet join forces with found sounds and scrying feedback to plumb the earth-scraping depths and dazzling brightness of this wild landscape.

Electronics stutter and flicker like light seen through myriad leaves as the pieces themselves move slowly but with easy confidence, assuredly elemental and pure. Some pieces are closer to the ground, the little drops of nature as if magnified, while the cello wraps it all in a cloak of melancholic warmth.

Some of the electronics are are a little harsher and more forceful, but these tiny details are a pleasure to pick out, regardless of their intentions. There is a pleasant flurry of distorted feedback on “The Basic Sharpness Of Emotions”, like the trapped static of a thunderstorm or a disrupted signal of something distant.

There is a tumult in “Warped”, as if the pressure is gradually mounting, and sounds emerge from the fray, fleetingly glimpsed as if caught through the drops of a torrential downpour; while in other places, the air is one of tranquil abandon. There is no real precedent here; the choice of instruments touches on some of the modern classical or minimalist soundscapes, but the evocation of outdoors and the sense of solitude as you marvel amongst the vastness is generally what the listener takes away from here.

There are some similarities to the grandeur and scope of Loscil‘s coast/range/arc//, but the change of environment and the joy of seeing through the overall emotion of the pieces to pick up the details is more immersive. The instrumentation creates a cocoon in which these little found sounds and field recordings are suspended, the deliberate pace and resonant notes highlighting them in detail.

There is a hint of a human touch with some disembodied vocals sounds on the final piece, “Coemergent Thought”, and the intensity of this soundscape is the first time that you feel hemmed in as a listener, the claustrophobia evoking an inescapability that is greatly at odds with the feelings evoked as the album opens, thus taking you through a full range of feelings before the record ends. The Basic Sharpness Of Emotions is a thoughtful and engaging listen that releases greater detail with every listen.

-Mr Olivetti-