LUCIANO MAGGIORE
Onagro
3“CDR, (22’14’’ ), 60 copies, printed cardboard cover
1000füssler 022, released in February 2014

The material for this work comprises of field recordings made in Ardore, South Italy, August 2012. These recordings were then improvised with using a Revox B77 tape recorder and edited, over the afternoons of September 15th and 16th 2013.

Onagro 1 (4’38’’)
Onagro 2 (4’36’’)
Onagro 3 (3’12’’)
Onagro 4 (4’25’’)
Onagro 5 (3’50’’), mp3 excerpt
Onagro 6 (1’31’)

Music by Luciano Maggiore, 2013. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Drawing by Luciano Maggiore.



About the Artist:
Luciano Maggiore (Palermo 1980) lives and works in Bologna. Active musician in the field of electroacoustic music, in recent years he has developed a strong interest in the mechanisms of sound diffusion, using speakers and several analogue and digital devices (walkmans, CD players, tape recorders) as principal instruments. His interest is focused on the architectural and psychoacoustic as well as dynamic and directional values of sound with a strong emphasis on fixed sounds.
He regularly plays in duo with Francesco Brasini and Enrico Malatesta.
He has collaborated with Adam Asnan, Angstarbeiter, Auriga, Riccardo Baruzzi, Tim Blechmann, Mario De Vega, John Duncan,  Attila Faravelli, Tomaz Grom, Andrew L. Hooker, Seiji Morimoto, Seijiro Murayama, Phonorama, Nicola Ratti, Jin Sangtae, Matija Schellander, Teatro Valdoca, Xing, Zapruder Filmmakergroup, Zimmerfrei.
His works are published by Boring Machines, Senufo editions, Balloon & Needle, 1000füssler and Tulip records.
http://lucianomaggiore.blogspot.it



REVIEWS:


Just outside / USA

Maggiore's "Onagro" consists of six brief pieces comprised of field recordings, though sounding more like amplifications inside a burning Cd player, all delicate crackles, sometimes with regular iterations as of some mechanical revolutions, but also sounding as though embedded in a wider atmosphere, a haze of just discernible noises in the background. Wonderful stereophony in play here; situating one's ears between speakers is a giddy joy. The sounds vary in timbre--lower knocking ones, hollow ping-pongy ones--but the activity level is similar, active but very natural sounding, as some highly mic'd goings on in a garden, though perhaps an artificial one. Fascinating, capable of being listened to over and over.

Brian Olewnick, Just outside, March 11, 2014



Vital Weekly / Netherlands

Three new releases on 3" format by 1000Füssler, Gregory Büttner's label. I started out with the release of Luciano Maggiore, simply because it has been a very long time since I last heard of him (Vital Weekly 622). He is from Bologna, uses a variety of speakers and analogue and digital devices (Walkman’s, CD players, tape recorders) as instruments. He also plays sometimes with Francesco Brasini and Enrico Malatesta. Here he has a bunch of field recordings which 'were then improvised with using a Revox B77 tape recorder and edited, over the afternoons of September 15 and 16th 2013'. I am not sure how that 'improvised with using a Revox B77' works, but maybe it has to do with the change of speed of a reel-to-reel recorder; at least, that's what it sounds like: very high crackling sounds, split entirely into the stereo spectrum, sounding, more or less similar, yet also slightly different. These 'field recordings' seem to me derived from indoor acoustic action, but it's hard to guess what these sounds actually are. It's an interesting release with some nice sound and the treatments there of, but I'd say also long enough at twenty-three minutes.

Frans de Waard / Vital Weekly 921



The Soundprojector / UK

Luciano Maggiore is the Italian composer from Palermo who we have heard previously on the Boring Machines label, working with partner Francesco Brasini, but Onagro (1000füssler 022) is a solo effort. Field recordings made in South Italy have been transferred onto Luciano’s Revox tape machine, where he used them as the basis for some intense improvising and editing actions, hopefully laying his hand directly on the rotating spools and splicing with sellotape and razor. Net profit for the day…small sounds, puzzling outputs, quiet and unobtrusive in tone…yet from such unpromising material, small patterns begin to emerge and engage the ear and brain to some degree. Highly transformative of the original field recordings and thus impossible to connect these sounds with anything that might actually exist in nature, although there is a drawing of a donkey on the cover.

Ed Pinsent / thesoundprojector.com/2014/11/15/ventilation



Bad Alchemy / Germany

Auf Onagro (022, 3" mCD-R) kritzelt der aus Palermo stammende LUCIANO MAGGIORE tickende und insektiod kauende Anmutungen. Er lässt in einer sechs-teiligen Variations-Reihe winzige Detonationen blitzen, Bläschen platzen, winzige Chitinkiefer oder Schnäuzchen stöbern. Alle Klänge hat der als Partner von Francesco Brasini mit zwei Alben auf Boring Machines bereits vorgestellte Sizilianer in der Gegend um Ardore in Kalabrien eingesammelt und spielerisch mit einem Revox B77-Tonband in Form gebracht. Steinchen schleifen und klicken aneinander, eine panische Hand scheint etwas auf Schiefer zu stenografieren. Hölzchen tocken wie Tischtennisbällchen, klappern die Sekunden mit Ponyhufen, es tröpfelt auf Blätter, blitzt splittrig. Die Welt ist aus der Perspektive all dessen, das wir Halbesel zertrampeln, ohne es überhaupt zu merken, eine andere, um nicht zu sagen: eine eigene.

Rigo Dittmann / Bad Alchemy 81



Improve Sphere / France

Six pièces provenant de field-recordings réalisés dans le sud de l'Italie, et 22 minutes d'une musique vraiment étrange. Avec Onagro, l'artiste sonore italien Luciano Maggiore propose encore une fois un disque comme on en aurait jamais imaginé. Si c'est bien fait à partir d'enregistrements de terrain travaillés ensuite sur un Revox, c'est vraiment difficile d'imaginer la source tellement le résultat semble abstrait. Maggiore nous convie ici à un voyage imaginaire au pays d'instruments inimaginables. On a l'impression d'entendre des percussions par moments, ou des clés de saxophone, puis des battons de pluie dans une chambre anéchoïque. Mais il s'agit d'une impression floue, on sait que ce n'est rien de tout ça, mais on ne sait pourtant pas à quoi à s'accrocher. Maggiore a composé ici six sketches sonores vraiment intrigants, très austères et abstraits, avec beaucoup d'espace, des textures qui interrogent, un volume faible, et surtout une imagination et une créativité qui sont propres à Luciano Maggiore. Très bon travail (encore une fois trop court peut-être).

Julien Héraud, 24 mars 2014, improv-sphere.blogspot.fr



CM Mag / Russia

копаться в самом саунде, сколько любопытно улавливать мельчайшие его модификации. Может даже показаться, что ничего не происходит в музыке, но это будет лишь обманчивое впечатление, которое улетучивается по мере наступления заинтересованности. В чём? Звук и только он. И вот когда уже начинаешь понимать, что разнообразия ждать не придётся, когда наступает осознание, что нужно наслаждаться звуком, тогда и приходят в голову следующие, будто скрытые, слои композиций. Думаешь, что вот она, короткая зацикленная фраза, а вот этот звук напоминает игру в пинг-понг. Может быть это и так. Лучано не даёт понять, но предоставляет пищу для размышлений.

Илья Белоруков / Ilia Belorukov, 04.11.2014, http://cmmag.org



































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