Joy De Vivre / Italy /2024 / CS
Distorted and delineated fragments of sound and memory collide on this new micro-release from Turin’s (spn) via Northern Italian label Joy De Vivre.
Everyday life experience lends itself to us believing that time moves in a straight line, as a constant and unwavering. But when that plane is shattered, reality contorts and memories can alter. Quietly working away in Italy’s Northern Provence, (spn) explores these principles through ingenious use of abstract and naive composition. Strings are pitched down and repeated into a resonant slurry, keys warble and tumble in a blurry haze and gabbled vocals are lost in the middle distance. The effects are disorientating though vaguely familiar, like being trapped in a zonked liminal state wedged between dream and reality. It’s a fleeting encounter that feels like an aural kaleidoscope of fractured imagery. Despite operating with a limited means, the Italian stretched his compositional arsenal to the achingly beautiful ‘Vagone Letto’, waltzing percussive piece ‘Coins’ and red-eyed sludge of ‘Mirafiori’, contorting spacetime at will and sounding like a lost Hype Williams demo at times. Interesting and unassuming new music and exactly the kind of thing you’d always hope to just stumble upon.