Bellows
Members: Nicola Ratti, Giuseppe Ielasi
Udarnik
2011 release ** "French soprano saxophonist Michel Doneda and Swiss accordionist Jonas Kocher are joined by Slovenians Tomaz Grom (double bass) and Tao G Vrhovec Sambolec (laptop) in four tight, tense improvisations recorded at the (DA)(NE)S Festival in Maribor. Kocher's squeezebox and Doneda's squeaks work together with near telepathic precision, while Grom's growls and Sambolec's grainy drizzle add depth and drama. Filling up what would otherwise be a rather short album, Giuseppe Ielasi's remi…
III
Tip! *200 copies limited edition* "Yesterday it started to rain… The smell of damp tarmac rising up through open windows, a smell which is uniquely evocative for us all depending on our individual histories: a suburban pavement, a school playground, a basketball court. The rain cut through a band of low pressure that had been lying over the city for days, pinging rhythmically off metal, causing rolling tyres to hiss and spit. The music that soundtracked this meteorological shift was the debut fu…
Automatic Popular Music
*300 copies limited edition* Inside Automatic Popular Music there are two people sitting in a room, their backs to each other. One plays a piano with no particular attention to detail and tuning of the instrument, and another, sitting behind him, claps his hands on his own legs. They do not see each other, they never look at each other, they can only listen to each other, look around. The room is large enough, it is daytime, there are four windows through which enough light enters to illuminate …
Five Wooden Frames
*2023 stock* Five Wooden Frames marks the return of Italian artist Giueppe Ielasi to 12k after his captivating polyrhythmic explorations on Aix (12k1051, 2009). He completely abandoned the guitar in the mid 2000’s to explore minimal electro-acoustic abstractions (see his releases on his own Senufo Editions) or rhythmic and groove-based music (see his Stunt series, the Inventing Masks project, and Aix and Tools on 12k).
Once again, however, the guitar has become his main focus, both as an instrum…
Its Appearance, Reflected by Three Copies
* 6-panel digisleeve (coated 350gms cardboard). Edition of 200 * Electronic music, composed and mixed in May 2021. Original materials recorded in January 2018.
Continental
**300 copies** Continental is the new full-length solo record by Milan-based multi-instrumentalist Nicola Ratti, following recent releases on Where to Now? and Room40. Conceived of by Ratti as a "series of big rooms or places to get lost in, full of small details and characterized each by a single flavor or perfume", it is a surprising and vibrant collection of music. Working with a palette of spare, expertly deployed percussive synthesis techniques, Ratti's work here is both labyrinthine and co…
Quarry
*Limited to 200 copies* "Quarry is the latest chapter in the ongoing collaboration between the London-based composer-performer of musique concrète Adam Asnan and the Italian sound artist and mastering engineer Giuseppe Ielasi. As the title may suggests, this encounter produced a dusty sculpture whose shape was only drafted immediately after the stone has been excavated from the ground, and where it is hard to distinguish the acousmatic touch of Asnan from the rhythmic textures of Ielasi. "It ven…
Holiday for Sampler
** One-time pressing edition limited to 250 copies. ** In April 2011 Giuseppe Ielasi and Andrew Pekler met for a three day recording session at Pekler's studio in Berlin. In a comfortable atmosphere and with a minimum of preparation, the two artists endeavored to find common musical ground through their shared interests in sample manipulation, layering the texture and improvisation. Some months later Ielasi auditioned the recordings and then mixed down his favorite passages. To a few of these se…
Handcut
** Edition limited to 250 copies. ** Giuseppe Ielasi and Nicola Ratti, two musicians from Italy with an extensive solo activity, started the Bellows project together in 2006 and released their first CD in 2007. Their second release, an LP available now on PLANAM, was recorded in november 2009 in Tübingen, Germany. Quite different from the first, this new project was developed around the simple technique of cutting/destroying and amplifying vinyl records with contact microphones, creating new gro…
Right after
Right After is a remarkably subtle album of duo electronics by two relatively young Italians with roots in avant-garde improvisation. While Giuseppe Ielasi began his career as a guitarist and Domenico Sciajno was an improvising bassist of note, both gradually moved into the area of pure electronics and sound manipulation. A fine balance of pristine, crystalline sounds and earthy scrabbling noises is shown from the first track, ²at a greater distance² which offsets pinging, high pitched tones tha…