[reviews] afe059cd
telepherique + maurizio bianchi: zehn tage (touka)

The long-term friendship between Klaus Jochim/Telepherique and Maurizio Bianchi has led to this collaborative CD, the very first "regular" cd released by Afe Records alone.

Telepherique has frequently collaborated with other artists over the years (see the brilliant CD-R with Ultra Milkmaids, just to pick in the Afe catalogue), but this is the very first "shared" work by Bianchi (whose importance in the fields of industrial and electronica I won't even mention... period).

"Zehn Tage (Touka)" is a massive 74-minute, 10-track concept on the nature and perception of time, titled after the 10-day gap created by the shift from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, back in 1582.

The metaphor serves as a reflection on man's attempts at artificially controlling time, and as a memento on the endless, senseless rat-race we force ourselves on. But this rather scary series of thoughts doesn't prevent the work from being fascinating and soothing rather than ominous.

Pretty much like Telepherique's "Hoerspiele", it is very much based on looped sounds, but the hypnotizing rhythmical patterns have a kind of droning ambient quality. Actually, very few tracks (notably #5 and #9) feature more recognizable (and, to my taste, less effective) technoid/electronic beats.

The sound palette is rich, with some memorable mixes: guitars, synths, bagpipes, birds, water, metallic percussions, scarce vocal samples... the songs often become dizzying mantras, leaving your head light.

A very personal and inspired work which embodies cosmic ambient, beat electronica, concrete music... I was often reminded of label mate Raffaele Serra, which also leads to my only query - I find it a tad too long to be listened to in a row. But hey, this probably has to do with time perception itself... and this is surely worth 74 minutes of your life.

[Eugenio Maggi]