[reviews] afe126lcd
k11: waiting for the darkness

...Only two weeks ago I first heard the name Pietro Riparbelli, a.k.a. K11, with his excellent release recorded with Philippe Petit. K11 works exclusively with radio sounds, but also lots of sound effects.

The work here started as an action "of instrumental transcommunication with short wave radio receivers. It was performed in a forest during the night."

The five tracks are divided over frequency ranges, 30Khz, 70 Khz, etc. The first two are great textured pieces of ambient industrial sounds. But then "300 Khz - 11:00 p.m." is a pretty noise based affair and I must say I didn't like it that much.

In the two pieces that follow the noisy elements slowly disappears, but never is really away, although in "29 Mhz - 01:00 a.m." the noise is just a nice strong wind sound.

There is also a video on the disc, which doesn't explain much more. I hoped to see some radios lines up in a nocturnal forest, but instead we see someone running with torch through the woods. Its probably with the intention to look spooky but it looks rather naive I think.

That may be said of the entire release. Its not bad, but also not really good. K11 knows what he's doing, he does this music with some consideration, but he also takes a bit too much time to get his message across, and that has room for some rethinking.

[Frans de Waard]