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Rating: Initially, when I didn't find any trace of the The Conet Project in the big database(r), I was a bit surprised. Then, I asked myself: do you really know what we are talking about?
So, what are we talking about? It is not a music album, it is not a soundtrack, it is not some remote or experimental project by an unknown band. I don't even know if it can be considered "artistic" or worthy of a review. But it exists. It's something dark and, for some reason still, almost unknown. A phenomenon linking the past and the future with a thin line of mystery.
For this reason, more than putting on the clothes of an improvised reviewer, I will wear those of the Roberto Giacobbo of the moment to clarify all this (bad image, I know...).
We are in the midst of the Cold War. There is talk of spies and great secrets. If your name isn't John Nash and this warlike climate makes you paranoid, you might be a radio amateur and often find yourself turning the knobs of your favorite device. You want to relax, you want to ease the tension, but you are also curious and want to know the truth, you want to know if you are safe.
So it happens that, instead of hearing some relaxing music, you stumble upon bizarre broadcasts. Transmissions that repeat numbers, letters, phrases, in succession. Sometimes in English, German, Spanish, Russian... and they are not random transmissions, they are codes, they are encrypted information.
So it's all true! The spies, the conspiracies, the great secrets... then you realize that you are not even listening to the radio anymore, busy as you are building yourself a tin foil hat.
Years go by, and we discover that those mysterious broadcasts actually exist since the First World War, and those transmitting them are the Number Stations, low-budget stations equipped with simple shortwave radios and other small devices like Morse generators. KGB? CIA? Giovanni Rana? Complete clarity has never been made on the senders of these messages, on the value of their use, although a large group of enthusiasts still tries to decipher them.
Among these, in 1997, there is the British record label Irdial Discs which decides to collect several recordings of those radio transmissions into 4 discs, and thus The Conet Project is born. An experiment, a remarkable work that, despite its non-musicality, still managed to have a particular impact on the musical and recording world.
Boards Of Canada, Mike Patton, Wilco, Porcupine Tree, Manu Chao, Devendra Banhart, and many others have drawn from the nearly five hours of recordings from The Conet Project. FIVE HOURS OF RECORDINGS, which take the listener into a state of total alienation, of greyness and apathy, where synthetic voices, sometimes of women, sometimes of men, sometimes of creepy children, incessantly dictate numbers, syllables, acronyms, alternating with sinister tunes and redundant chants.
Because yes, the whole thing, at certain moments – and if you have patience and guts, you will discover it with your own ears – takes on rather disturbing connotations, which will lead you to stop listening multiple times. Where fear won't reach, the feeling of loss, of confusion, if not frustration, will take over. And to think that with the 2013 reissue, there's even a fifth bonus disc from which, personally, I've spared myself.
Irdial Discs encourages free download (if not actual purchase) to all kinds of listeners. From anyone who wants to give a simple listen, to those who seriously aspire to decode the many secret messages. I leave the choice to you... Are you curious? Make it an event, but I advise against headphones and dim environments.
And put away those tin foil hats!
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