Electronic producer and trumpet player Flavio Rivabella first started his Der Berkkante Post-Industrielle Trompeter (or D.B.P.I.T.) project back towards the start of the decade, before releasing his debut solo album ‘Eleven’ through the Misty Circles label in 2002. Since then, Rivabella has spent time collaborating with a wide range of different artists, and indeed he’s certainly been extremely prolific, with his website listing around 15-20 different solo and split releases during the ensuing years. This latest collaborative CDR release on the Japanese Deserted Factory sees D.B.P.I.T. working alongside XxeNa, a painter, videomaker and graphic designer working with sound for the first time. Because D.B.P.I.T. was apparently engaged in a period of ‘personal exile’ during the recording of this project, the four lengthy pieces saw him working only with a single laptop owned by XxeNa, with the emphasis falling upon sounds sourced from around the duo’s household, including pots and pans, beads in a jar, wind-up toys and even the judicious deployment of a toilet flushing (apparently) at points.
The end result is a beguiling collection that could perhaps be best labelled as electro-acoustic noise / musique concrete, though it deftly avoids the more aggressive tendencies of the former genre, balancing its more shearing, distorted elements with a sense of gentle playfulness that makes for a surprisingly accessible listening experience. The opening title track certainly provides an apt illustration of this overall approach – while much of its textures are drawn from more distorted regions that call to mind the constant flow of grainy noise, with what sounds like kitchen appliances and poured materials merged with an almost vaporous, continual hissing tone, it’s the frequent unexpected elements such as what even almost sounds like treated bird song at points that really tweak the interest factor. The appropriately spooky-sounding ‘Out Of Body Experience’ manages to traverse a similar path, with its blend of modulated electronic tones, harmonic swells and continuous, steam-like noises certainly calling to mind the disembodied sensations evoked by the title – particularly as ghostly, distant strains of Rivabella’s trumpets slowly fade into focus amidst a distant wash of what sounds like forest field recordings near its end. An extremely impressive collaborative effort from D.B.P.I.T. and XxeNa that shows both producers managing to think well outside the usual ambient noise parameters.
