Giuseppe Ielasi
The noise-laden landscapes and loop-based constructions that break down into an abstract idea of contemporary electroacoustic music.
He grew up in the south of Italy and now resides in the outskirts of Milano with his family. He has been making music and touring since the late nineties (he tours much less nowadays). He mostly plays solo, but also in Bellows (with Nicola Ratti), Rain Text (with Giovanni Civitenga), in duos with Enrico Malatesta, Kassel Jaeger, Andrew Pekler and collaborates regularly with filmmakers and photographers Giulia Bruno, Armin Linke and theatre director Chiara Guidi. He has released music on 12k, Entr’acte, Senufo Editions (which he co-curates with Jennifer Veillerobe), Dekorder, Holidays, Black Truffle, Error Broadcast (as Inventing Masks), 901editions and a few other labels.
Since the 1990s, he has been exploring the sonic qualities of the guitar: improvising, preparing, looping; and finally dismissing the instrument in favour of electronic excursions into dreamy, minimal and noisy landscapes. These "abstracted takes on club music and hip-hop" (after the description of the album Down On Darkened Meetings on the Bandcamp platform) put his creative explorations on a new track and helped to establish his unique style as an artist who is also familiar with spectral compositions. In recent years, however, he has returned to the guitar, which has resulted in further interesting metamorphoses of his music.
Created between 1963 and 1967, Treatise is a graphic musical score consisting of 193 pages of lines, symbols and a variety of geometric shapes. This monumental work by Cornelius Cardew is an introspective journey into the nature of time and rhythm, inspired by Wittgenstein's concept of Tractatus logico-philosophicus.
Just as the philosopher explored the limits of language and its relationship to reality, Treatise becomes a kind of 'treatise of sound', provoking reflection on our perception of time and rhythm. In Treatise, time ceases to be merely a linear sequence of events, becoming a dense network of relations and experiences, just as in Wittgenstein's philosophy, where meanings are formed in context. This non-linear perception of time is reflected in abstract symbols and shapes that remind us of the relational nature of reality.
Treatise provokes interpretation and exploration of sound, just as Wittgenstein provoked reflection on language. Like language, which reflects our perception of the world, rhythm in Treatise manifests itself as a fundamental element of human existence, providing a starting point for introspection on existence and the meaning of life.