exotic esoterique volume 1

Next up a message from Luigi alerting us to a newly minted label of which he’s the co-founder, ArteTetrA is the name of the imprint specialising in psychedelia, esoteric and exotica their first release being a tape compilation of Italian and American experimentalists many of whom (in fact all of whom) have before now managed to avoid our normally acutely tuned radar and all free wheeling into sonic disciplines that range from the strange to the obtuse. While we sit with the compilation incidentally titled ‘exotic esoterique’ a little longer a few quick picks from what we’ve heard so far from this 15 track gathering. Parked at its close you’ll find Felippo Giuffre whose ‘perche parli’ is a neatly skewed and angular slice of freeform no wave groove whose intricate riff-tronic skittering may well call to mind the less wild and siege mentality obsessed out there and weirdly wired art rock gouged frenetics of KK Null and to a lesser extent Henry Cow, though scratch a little deeper and what emerges is something bearing a detectable kinship to Italo sonic alchemists My Cat is an Alien. Elsewhere and much the cause of raised pulses lurk Obscure whose ‘schwermut’ reveals itself as something of chamber noise drone sortie which in its initial passages had us recalling the very early output of the esteemed Fat Cat label notably Foehn albeit as though caught in the mersmeric gaze of a very youthful and playful Pan Sonic before terra-forming and fracturing to shower all skull clobbering trance Dadaism. Those of you admiring of the releases flying out of the much loved foolproof projects sound lab (we may as well warn you right now that both West Hill Blast Quartet and Aeolipile await on the review to do list) will do well to turn your listening lobes onto the warped and wiring sounds off Hysm? Duo whose ‘episodio 14’ is a strange amalgamation of tribal unruliness a la PIL’s ‘flowers of romance’, doomy throat chants and seriously uneasy psyched out séances replete with bowed bells. As said there will be further visitations to this rather splendid compilation in due course.

Here’s a little teaser film to get you going….