Highlighted by the magazine Rockerilla as “a surprising album and one of the best works heard this year”, Furniture music for new primitives is the title of the new album by musician and composer Paolo Tarsi, created for the POPtraits Contemporary Music Collection series of Cramps and the label Rara Records. The album premiered on Battiti di Radio Rai 3 on February 5th, the date marking the centenary of William S. Burroughs' birth. The concept of the album revolves around the novel Cities of the Red Night (1981), a formal reference point for constructing the chapters of this work and the first volume in The Red Night Trilogy (1981-87), the Beat writer's trilogy that also includes The Place of Dead Roads and The Western Lands.

Composed entirely of tracks by Paolo Tarsi, the album is a return to the origins of minimalism and sees a dialogue between contemporary music, experimental rock, and improvisation, enriched by the presence of numerous guests. Starting with Junkfood, a math rock formation composed of Paolo Raineri (trumpet) - also a member of the KOMARA project with David Kollar and Pat Mastelotto of King Crimson -, Michelangelo Vanni (electric guitar), Simone Calderoni (bass), and Simone Cavina (percussion), whose sound geometries drawn from free, avant jazz, electronic, dark ambient, and industrial are revived in their interpretation of Electric Sakuhin, amidst echoes of post-rock and contemporary experimentation.

Of particular note is the participation in the project by Paolo Tofani (Area – International POPular Group), who, with his trikanta veena, accompanies in Construction dans l’espace et le silence (inspired by a work of Antoine Pevsner) the string formation Quartetto Maurice on electronic interferences curated by Roberto Paci Dalò (also featured on the album with his bass clarinet), as well as jazz organist Gianni Giudici, here on electric piano, and avant-garde saxophonist Michele Selva.

Dedicated to Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, Cluster #2 was specifically written for the duo composed of former Afterhours (now Der Maurer) Enrico Gabrielli - multi-instrumentalist in Calibro 35 and arranger for Dente, Morgan, Vinicio Capossela - and Sebastiano De Gennaro, percussionist and musical researcher active in the bands of Luci della Centrale Elettrica and Baustelle, to which the guitar of Diego Donati is added. In the total animal soup of time is, on the other hand, a musical cut-up inspired by Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl, in which thematic fragments from Donald Fagen's (Steely Dan) I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World) and Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations are reassembled, punctus contra punctum. Other tributes are addressed to figures from contemporary art and the twentieth century, such as Paolo Cotani, Tullio Pericoli, Marco Tirelli, and Roy Lichtenstein.

For its title, the album partly draws inspiration from the English translation of musique d’ameublement, the expression coined by Erik Satie to define the final phase of his production (literally meaning "furniture music," sometimes translated as "wallpaper music"), conceptually anticipating Brian Eno's ambient music. But not only that. It is at the same time a mirror and metaphor of a world, the one we live in, completely saturated with signals and ways of communicating, populated by virtual creatures that seem to move like new primitives in front of the technological possibilities of the 21st century.

Recorded mainly at the Pink House studios in Monsano (An), but also in Turin (Recording Room Music), Milan (Terrible Studio), Rimini, and Piacenza, the album is a production of the label Rara Records - for which works by Ennio Morricone and the last recording of Giulio Capiozzo, founding member of Area, have been released - seeing the light in collaboration with one of the most important brands in the Italian discography, Cramps, positioning itself as the second volume of the POPtraits Contemporary Music Collection series (the previous release featured none other than Paolo Tofani and Alvin Curran), while the artwork results from collaboration with artist Luca Domeneghetti, renowned photographer Roberto Masotti (Cramps, ECM), and composer, director, and visual artist Roberto Paci Dalò.

Tracklisting:
1. Dreamtime | feat. Roberto Paci Dalò
2. Cluster #2 | feat. Enrico Gabrielli/Der Maurer, Sebastiano De Gennaro, Diego Donati
3. Electric Sakuhin | feat. Junkfood 4tet
4. In the total animal soup of time (an index of secrets) | feat. Roberto Paci Dalò, Gianni Giudici, Michelangelo Vanni (Junkfood 4tet)
5. A lenta percezione | feat. Enrico Gabrielli/Der Maurer
6. The melody haunts my reverie | feat. Michele Selva
7. Construction dans l’espace et le silence | feat. Paolo Tofani, Quartetto Maurice, Roberto Paci Dalò
8. Minutes to Go (ghost track) | feat. Paolo Tofani (Area – International POPular Group)

Tracklist

01   Dreamtime (00:00)

02   Cluster #2 (00:00)

03   Electric sakuhin (00:00)

04   In the total animal soup of time (00:00)

05   A lenta percezione (00:00)

06   The melody haunts my reverie (00:00)

07   Construction dans l'espace et le silence (00:00)

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