Luca Giuoco
L'Oracolo Di Berlino

LA RECENSIONE

Berlin, during the Cold War, a radio station broadcasts mysterious signals... coded numbers. It was a different era, not the Berlin of David Bowie, Lou Reed, or even that of Christiane F. or Berghain techno. It was a world on the brink of a nuclear war, and these stations were used by the different powers at play to transmit encrypted messages.

Although their use is still unknown, in recent years they have been brought to light in the eyes of enthusiasts by "The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations" released in 4 CDs, influencing artists such as Boards Of Canada.

And it is the fragment of one of these voices that serves as the initial starting point for this work, which perhaps we could call a concept album.

The central concept is not the number stations, but the vision and imagery of Luca Giuoco: an oppressive world.

The atmosphere is reminiscent of early industrial, like Cabaret Voltaire and Clock DVA, the same minimal approach, the desire to create first of all a state of mind and only later a musical piece.

Despite the album being created entirely with virtual instruments, the Turin musician shows that he knows well the secrets of synthesis and sound, and upon listening to the first two tracks, it almost seems like facing an old cassette from the early 1980s, found miraculously.

The author, however, has other intentions, and the album also develops in other directions, like in "Die Glocken" where the presence of sampling from number stations starts to become truly oppressive, while the music takes on soundtrack traits, close to certain productions of Tangerine Dream.

It is through this passage that the encoded message, from strategic communication, becomes a prophecy, indeed, Oracle, and in "La Sacerdotessa Elettrica" we find another change of scene, entering an almost cyber-punk world, close to Clock DVA of "The Hacker" or certain KK Records productions. The sampling becomes pure sound, through processing and repetition, as in Alvin Lucier's sound experiment, "I Am Sitting In A Room", and then flows into "La Macchina Della Solitudine" where the beat rises, and even in the absence of techno bass, one feels the atmosphere of illegal raves, DIY production, and that kind of conspiratorial attitude (a term I prefer over the more common conspiracist, which has taken on far different political and social meanings) and punk.

A single note goes to the stream listening via Bandcamp, where each track is separated while originally they were conceived as a continuous flow, and the two-second pause between one track and another breaks the atmosphere. It's a pity it's only a digital release because it would have been nice to have a physical version, even in a simple and economical format like the cassette, perfect for this genre.

A new name to follow for all experimental electronic enthusiasts, from the Italian Grey Area, which we hope will soon provide a follow-up to his vision.