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This record was made during 2011 in Italy. The album, product of the "impro duet” Tonino Taiuti and Vincenzo De Luce, can be called avant-blues. This mysterious work contains emotional parts. We can hear instrumental lines of acoustic and electric guitars, trumpet and electronic background sounds and effects. UMBER’s main features is its inclination to primitivism and its wigged out air.
If this is the music, this is music at its most bare and essential form.
Zero Centigrade is an Italian experimental duo consisting of Tonino Taiuti (acoustic and electric guitar) and Vincenzo De Luce (trumpet and sounds). Their sound is the result of their different experiences.
Tonino Taiuti is an author and an actor in theatre and cinema; he has worked with directors such as Enzo Moscato, Mario Martone, Gabriele Salvatores, Toni Servillo and Giorgio Barberio Corsetti.
In 2002 he began his experience in visual arts with a personal exhibition that took place at the "Serio" art gallery and "Pigrecoemme”, in Naples.
He has played with Eugene Chadbourne (live at Oblomova 07/03/2009) and Rhys Chatham (concert for six guitars, live at Teatro Galleria Toledo, 26/03/2008).
Vincenzo De Luce is an architect engaged in landscape design and art exhibitions space design.
Zero Centigrade is something between electro-acoustic improvisation and weird folk. It was created to experiment with those sounds and noises of the guitar and trumpet whose effect sometimes had the harmonic passages almost touching the song form.
It is a music impossible in its simplicity: strings touched, atonal screeching, jagged counterpoints and the timbres of a trumpet at once acidic and human as well as animal.
They love to use their instruments in an almost primitive and very physical way, reducing them to veins and lungs. Finally, the blues, seen as a way to speak of the soul, without any technicality or theory which interferes on sound.
Their live performances are halfway between music, visual arts and theatre.
9.2.2012
Crafting harmonies from nowhere is what improvisation is all about. But the duo Zero Centigrade seems to make it an easy habit. With Umber, their third release, they yet again conjured up sounds and moods that are haunting, inviting and beautiful.
Silence and the search of sound tend to make up the structure of each Zero Centigrade project. And this manifests itself early on "Tumble Down," where sudden bursts of acoustic one notes alongside stretches, creaks and found noise slowly break into your psyche like a bad nightmare.
"A Strange Season I" showers with the continued influence the blues has had on the duo. Slow patterns emerge but always evolving around Taiuti's heart tugging yet distant melody. Raw, emotional and still forward thinking. Imagine if American alt-blues guitarist Chris Whitley played with Throbbing Gristle (I sure hope some of you get that).
The inward nature of "Stalk" and "Reflections" makes for a compelling listen. You will hear the strains of forgotten notes passing between each musician. "Far Horizon" feels distant and aching. Propelled by de Luce's superb use of electronics and Taiuti almost folkish improvisation this piece travels a long way very quickly before fading.
Another stellar almost "third-stream" outing for Zero Centigrade that shows a continued growth and desire to see what soundscapes they can capture in a short period of time. Umber is an album that won't treat you nicely unless you let it. The beauty lies in the details. Not designed for everyone but you will find elements that will affect you in different ways. Worth seeking out.
Jazz Wrap
Said temperature reading comprising Tonino Taiuti (electric and acoustic guitars) and Vincenzo de Luce (trumpet and sounds) who present twelve vignetters in a style that's sometimes post-Bailey, sometimes more in the eai mold and sometimes refers to rock or blues. I wrote about their prior release, "Unknown Distances" (Audio Tong), last fall, enjoying it well enough and this one, while covering some different ares, ends up delivering about the same level of satisfaction. The first track refers not so obliquely to Fahey and the Delta blues tradition while, sliding sideways into abstraction; a very nice job, not so far from what one can imagine Fahey himself having done had he lived. The guitar s generally heard as such, often the trumpet as well. This sets up a difficult problem, to negotiate some potentially well-worn avenues and not sound derivative. One obvious "route" around this obstacle is to simply play what you truly feel instead of trying to do something and I get the sense that this pair manages that on occasion, as on the lovely "Dead Flowers" where there may be echoes of Bailey and Wheeler but not so many as to distract from a moving performance. There are several of those nuggets to be found here where they find a good balance between the nostalgic and the harsh again, not so dissimilar to what Fahey was investigating in the mid 90s, including several throbbing, bluesy rhythmic figures. (I've no idea if that's a recognized reference for these fellows). Other pieces either don't quite gel or can be heard as palate cleaners between more successful attempts. This disc grew on me a good deal at each subsequent listen; good work.
Brian Olewnick.
