Published by Alessandro Violante on May 24, 2023
Dozens of books and millions of pages have been written about how information overload and its obsolescence are two of the main trademarks of so called information society.
These two topics are linked together, and probably the second is a consequence of the first. Despite everyday media and critics seem to focus people attention on this situation, the most part of people don’t think about this and don’t try to change this situation, or maybe can’t do it.
Despite everyday new music is being released, and despite this can be considered a positive aspect, often it is forgotten very quickly, submerged by all the new releases which are costantly released. An album released one year ago is often considered and old record.
In this situation, the artists play a crucial role in trying to subvert and to criticize these principles. Among these critical attempts, we can include the new collaborative work released by Donato Dozzy and Sabla on 28th April on Gang Of Ducks and entitled Crono.
Both the artists and the label are Italian. During its long history, Italy has played a relevant role in music and languages experimentation research, since Futurism onwards. In fact, Gang Of Ducks is a multidisciplinary project which has already released music on different media as well as fanzines, such as those of the SN50 series.
In each issue of this project, the label asked to an artist to develop the fanzine contents choosing a theme.
Talking about Crono, here the artists have chosen to release four songs done between 2019 and 2022 and respectively entitled Flusso I, Flusso II, Flusso III and Flusso IV. The first song was done in 2019, while the second was released on 2020 and so on.
The Italian word “Flusso”, which meaning is “flow”, indicates the sound in its making, detached by its temporal dimension, result of a process of exchange and of the collaboration of the two artists.
Their aim is to make us think about what said above. Any artwork has a unique development, and it shouldn’t be experienced just for the time of a scroll and then replaced by another one. The right weight should be given to any of them.
The mixture of the sonic backgrounds of the two artists synthesizes very well the meeting of different artists teaming up for a common goal despite their personal experience. In Crono, past and present coexist, as its four songs cover music in which sounds of the past are used together with modern sounds, generating a hybrid music.
The most representative song of this concept is Flusso III, in which electronic and acoustic music meet each other in a 10 minutes long experience. The music contained in Crono could be defined as techno-ambient electronic music with a dub influence and an experimental approach. The dub influence is particularly clear in Flusso I and in Flusso II.
The ending song Flusso IV is a visionary and ethereal ambient song, a perfect ending for a journey that, despite its short length, has more than something to communicate to the listener.
Label: Gang Of Ducks
Rating: 8