Press release:

"I was searching the Turra along with Andrea Marutti to capture sounds for a forthcoming music release, when the refrain of the Archiaro carillon came to my mind. Without rehearsal, and availing myself of the natural reverb of the Turra, I gave voice to my soul." [Tommaso Cosco]

Original recordings for "Turra" were taken by Tommaso Cosco in Archiaro, (Catanzaro, Italy) on August 3, 2006. All treatments were made by Andrea Marutti and Tommaso Cosco in August 2007. Final mix and master were made by Andrea Marutti in early October 2008 at Lips Vago Digital Studio, Milan (Italy).

"Turra" is meant to be a natural extension to "The Subliminal Relation Between Planets (Live in Archiaro)" CD released by well-known Czech label Nextera in January 2008.

Reviews:

Enchanting release here and it's a 3" MiniCD that ties the knot between Andrea Marutti (a.k.a. Amon / Never Known / Afe head chief) and Tommaso Cosco that, yes, is an absolute new comer as a musician, but every once in a while organizes shows in Archiaro, a beautiful natural place in the south of Italy. For what regards the aesthetic result of this long track I'll cut it short by saying the heavy hand of Marutti in the production stage is clearly detectable in a split second, but be it I know a little bit of history of this recording, be it you can read it along with the inner lines of the artwork (written by Tommaso Cosco himself) you will convey with me some stories behind this or that release make them even more interesting. Being the natural extension of Marutti's "The Subliminal Relation Between Planets" that came out a while ago on Nextera, you probably may have deducted it's an ambient otherworldly effort, but what gives more and more points to the work is how Cosco assembled his sounds for this collaboration. I can't say exactly what a "Turra" is but at this point (and from the pictures) I imagine it's some kind of ancient house made of stones that farmers and shepherds probably used as a shelter/warehouse. Cosco did the most intelligent thing an untrained experimentator can do by leaving his instinct go boom and explode, this guy probably took confidence with the room, the natural reverb and with the microphones and he did it throwing in all of his intuition. After this bunch of instructions / informations on how the majority of the sounds have been produced, what I wrote so far could anticipate a variety of "music concrete, electro-acoustic / primitive" piece: no way! It's ambient, heavy ethereal and atmospheric ambient that voices the stones the walls have been made of.
Andrea Ferraris, Chain D.L.K., February 2009

...you could decide to end with the disc by Afe labelboss Andrea Marutti with someone I never heard of, Tommaso Cosco. He delivered the field recordings for "Turra", which are then processed by Marutti. Marutti has an extensive discography at hand in all sorts of music, but he is best known for his subtle dark drone music. This particular piece is no stranger in that land, as he regards it as his companion piece for his "The Subliminal Relation Between Planets", released by Nextera. Almost nineteen minutes of the deepest and darkest rumble around. It carries the listener away, but its over before you know it, and you land with a bump on earth again. This could have been easily twice the length.
Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly, March 2009

"Turra" come un luogo dell'anima, ma con impresso il paesaggio di Archiaro (nella campagna di Catanzaro) dove memoria e divenire si fondono in un presente pieno di consapevolezza, racconta Tommaso Cosco che ha offerto le sue registrazioni ai trattamenti sapienti di Andrea Marutti. Il risultato è un drone solitario di 18 minuti, notturno e invernale, dal cui magma emergono sottili spiragli di luce, forse le pulsazioni del silenzio.
Gino Dal Soler, Blow Up, April 2009

Piccolo gioiello dark ambient, questo mini CD riporta una sessione di registrazioni realizzata presso Archiaro, nel 2006, luogo dalle valenze percettive molto particolari, e per questo caro agli autori. È il calabrese Tommaso Cosco ad averlo "scoperto", o meglio rivelato: il suo nome potrebbe non dirvi nulla, ma forse qualcuno potrà ricordarlo per i suoi contributi alla mai dimenticata fanzine Deep Listenings. Cosco è alla sua prima vera e propria release, sebbene abbia in diverse maniere intrecciato e contribuito alle creazioni artistiche di altri musicisti dell'area ambient sperimentale italiana, in primis l'Andrea Marutti che firma con lui questo disco e lo pubblica sulla solita rinomata Afe. Da intendersi come il degno compendio del live pubblicato su Nextera l'anno scorso ("The Subliminal Relation Between Planets", registrato appunto ad Archiaro), questo brano di 18 minuti e 45 secondi altro non è che una rielaborazione dei suoni di Cosco (prodotti essenzialmente con la voce) da parte di lui stesso e di Marutti. Ciò che ne risulta è molto vicino ai migliori lavori di quest'ultimo a nome Amon, ossia una sottile coltre di basse frequenze che scorrono tra riverberi ed echi. Si potrebbe obiettare che l'apporto di Tommaso sia troppo ridotto, ma per chi conosce i due si noterà come, in maniera sorprendente, il tono del disco, pur trattandosi di ‘dark' ambient, quindi cupa per definizione, finisce per essere inspiegabilmente luminoso, lieve, quasi soave, forse grazie proprio all'input iniziale dato dal vivace calabrese, amante di Lustmord come della taranta.
Matteo Uggeri, Sound and Silence, April 2009

The fourth Afe release I've heard this month is this teeny seedee from label owner Marutti and collaborator Cosco. It's the shortest and also probably the least satisfying. It's certainly not a bad track. As a piece of dark drone it does all the right things, makes all the right moves and heads off in the right direction, unfortunately though it doesn't really go anywhere. The music seems (the press sheet gives little away) to be a processed (by both) set of impromptu recordings (by Cosco). As far as I can make out these original recordings are barely present as the music is an amorphous grey wash. Like I said though it's competently done and if you like your music slow, dark and impenetrable then you may well enjoy this but it didn't grab me and there are far more recommended releases on Afe for you to invest in.
Ian Holloway, Wonderful Wooden Reasons, June 2009

Andrea Marutti is a veteran of the electronic avant-garde who also curates a beautifully-designed, cutting-edge CD-R label, Afe Records. Tommaso Cosco is his best friend and is not a musician, but rather a kind of modern-day Medici with dirt under his fingernails - he's both a fireman and an enthusiast of the experimental arts, hosting concerts and happenings on his property Archiaro, near Catanzaro in the arch of the foot of the boot of Italy. Andrea suggests you have a look around the property, and by visiting http://www.archiaro.it, you can. The "Turra" of the title refers to a small, abandoned storehouse, where Cosco's vocals were spontaneously recorded one August day. The two friends then went into the studio and proceeded to subject that recording to such treatment as to render it almost unrecognizable as human, except perhaps at once instance as we approach the end of this short, but harrowing journey, when a howl is unleashed that could raise the dead. Marutti and Cosco take us to the deepest, darkest place they can imagine, spelunking the inky blackness of a twisting, turning cave that seems to lead to the very core of the earth itself. "Turra" rumbles hollowly, organic but with the occasional machine edge on it, bathed in reverb that seems to just keep doubling over and over on itself until the deepest, darkest and most hopeless of states of mind is forced upon the listener. If you played this before you went to bed, it would give you nightmares.
Stephen Fruitman, Sonomu, July 2009

"Turra" is a single long conceptual piece that can be thought as a derivative / sound musical approach to the concept of askesis, I do not mean aescetism but interior activity or communication of the soul and the will which are beyond ordinary codified communications. In fact the initial material of this recording features the human voice. In this experimental piece, the voice is not perceived as a vehicle of language and is not involved in words (narratives). This is not a thinging voice but a spiritual respiration of the soul and of the body, in the service of life under cathartic proprotions (functional liberation of the spirit).To be precise, it is an investigation into the geneaology of the soul through deep visceral emotions. The original voice source of the practitioner is treated in studio by electronic equipments and effects that give to it an otherwordly-droning flavour. For the listener this spiritual-cathartical exercice turns to a fascinate meditation on physical sounds. A musical quest for cultivating the soul, a musical quest for freedom. Music about the deepest thruths of life.
Philippe Blache, Prog Archives, August 2009

"Turra" è la naturale estensione di "The Subliminal Relation Between Planets", il live, di cui già parlammo, suonato ad Archiaro da Andrea Marutti, uscito qualche tempo fa. Anche qui, il luogo di partenza è la città calabrese, dove Tommaso Cosco registra la sua voce nell'ambiente circostante e - insieme a Marutti - la rielabora e crea una lunga composizione vestita di un drone eterno ed evocativo. Le vibrazioni particolari del luogo rendono il suono galleggiante, un fluire ambient che scioglie il tempo e trae vita dalla suo estendersi. Questo è l'audio di una gara tra una tartaruga ed una lumaca. Riprese dall'alto e al rallentatore, con le nuvole a muoversi lente ed inesorabili, insieme a loro. Non un semplice scorrere di attimi musicali ma una corrente libera di pensiero, in cui l'anima si perde. Grande merito alla sempre ottima Afe Records che con queste uscite, nell'ambito sperimentale, non ha nulla da invidiare a nessuno.
Stefano Fanti, RockIt, September 2009

The mysterious Archiaro is to be found in Catanzaro of Southern Italy – Tommaso Cosco describes it as “a countryplace where memory and becoming merge in a present full of inspired consciousness”. Occasionally it seems to be used as a low key venue for friends to perform experimental, ambient works in a natural setting – something that Andrea Marutti, head of Milan's Afe Records, took advantage of in 2007 when he incorporated some of Tommaso's ideas into a solo live performance that was released by Nextera the following year as "The Subliminal Relation Between Planets". Billed as a “natural extension” to Andrea's live album, "Turra" is named after an old stone building found in Archiaro. Here, Tommaso, taking advantage of the turra's natural reverb, recorded an unrehearsed vocal take on a melody from a local carillon (a huge instrument consisting of over 20 cast bronze bells triggered serially through an oversized keyboard by fists and feet). So it is with some surprise that the resulting 18 minute recording housed on this 3" CD-R sounds neither vocal nor melodious. It does, however, major on reverb and displays the sonorous properties of a bell. Deep, rumbling, fragile tones are cast one after another, slowly and often unexpectedly, into the space, their long reverberating trails of harmonic overtones meet, collide and coalesce as their echoing decay is eventually eclipsed by another. The overall effect is evocative of a dark and damp labyrinth of dungeons whose tunnels and cells are defined by the combined emotional residue of previous solitary occupants. By starting out with a recording of a voice imbued with natural reverb, Andrea's and Tommaso's subsequent, presumably heavy, treatment expertly retains some of the drama inherent in organic source material, yet remains obtuse, making the short, monophonic intonations neither affecting nor disturbing, but, like its birthplace, intriguing.
Russell Cuzner, Musique Machine, March 2010