'Canzoni dal Laboratorio del Silenzio Cosmico' – which I gather translates as 'Songs from the Laboratory of Cosmic Silence' – contains just two tracks, imaginatively entitled 'Canzoni dal Laboratorio del Silenzio Cosmico I' and 'Canzoni dal Laboratorio del Silenzio Cosmico II', corresponding with one track per side of vinyl. There's something pretty cool about that, although some of this coolness is lost to me with my CD copy. Moreover, I fear that some of the detail is lost in this format, too, as 'Canzoni' is an intensely frequency and tone-orientated album. The shifting sounds across the two fifteen minute pieces have clearly been constructed with an almost obsessive attention to detail.
At first, slow, eerie chimes echo atop the rumble of solar winds and insect flickers that penetrate your skull, and from the outset it’s clear that the title matches the contents of the album perfectly. Slowly but surely, the sounds swell, before squeaks and bleeps trickle in and begin to swirl in the sonic vortex.
There are points when it all feels a bit like a prog concept album or the soundtrack to a 60s sci-fi on which the sound men have run riot with the sound effects, with a conglomeration of every cliche 'space' sound imaginable bubbling and swirling in the sonic vortex. Still, the first track does build to a galactic intensity that goes beyond mere pastiche and contrives to forge a quite extraordinary listening experience.
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'Canzoni dal Laboratorio del Silenzio Cosmico II' is rather less 'Blake's 7' and begins and ends with a rather more tranquil feel, but in the mid-point, the journey becomes altogether more challenging, with booming bass drones and bursts of noise worthy of Merzbow. This immense tumult comes as something of a surprise, and is all the more effective because of it.
Whether I would go so far as to describe this as an enjoyable album, I'm not so sure, but as an exercise in retro-futuristic sound collaging, it's an admirable work.
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