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LARSEN - Play
imprec043 - CD- $11.99 
Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo: guitar, bass, keys, vocals, harmonium
Marco Schiavo: drums, xylophone, vocals
Paolo Dellapiana: accordion, keys, bass, vocals
Roberto Maria Clemente: guitar, vocals
with:
Julia Kent: cello (Antony & The Johnstons/ Devendra Banhart
)
Marco Milanesio: electric piano, keys
Matt Howden: violin
Paul Beauchamp: Synth
To say that Larsen is mysterious or elusive is an understatement.
They are are so elusive, in fact, that Micheal Gira of The Swans/Angels
Of Light fame once said of Larsen “"I worked intimately
with the band for three weeks, but I never saw their faces."
Perhaps the finest description of their sound came from a perceptive,
if not overly wordy, Italian music journalist who described them
as an “italian-cult-collective-urban-folk-ritual-experimental
soundscape-wall of love band.” It’s all true.
Larsen’s sound is equally as ambiguous as any attempt to describe
them, imagine elements of Einsturzende Neubauten, The Swans, Barbez,
Six Organs Of Admittance, Vibracathedral Orchestra and Godspeed
You Black Emperor. Play, the brilliant new album, sounds like all
of these influences processed through the Larsen main brain on heavy
doses of Autechre. Yes, Autechre. Really.
As an excercise preceding the writing of Play, Larsen spent a lot
of time as a group improvising around some of their favorite melodies
from Autechre albums. This experimental excercise slowly evolved
into song writing and suddenly songs were coming out of the air
with Autecherian melodies filtered through climactic Larsen arrangements.
Play is a collection of Larsen “suites” where hints of
Autechre drift as inspiring ghosts rather than constituent matter.
According to Larsen, they attempted to create curvilinear, not angular,
interpretations of these melodies in an electric way, not an electronic
way, with the eclectic instrumentation regular in Larsen’s
arrangement. As they planned, they failed perfectly at covering
Autechre creating a hauntingly erruptive and droned out Larsen masterpiece
in the process.
BIO
LARSEN was formed in 1993 in Torino, Italy. A debut album, No Arms,
No legs: Identification Problems produced by Martin Bisi (Brian Eno,
Sonic Youth, White Zombie, Swans, Dresden Dolls and many many others)
was released in 1997. Their second album REVER was produced by Michael
Gira (Swans, Angels Of Light) and came out in 2002 on Gira’s
Young God label, garnering them considerable critical acclaim on both
sides of the Atlantic. England prestigious music journal The Wire
said: "...they center their songs around the dynamics of multiple
guitars, which may erupt in buzzsaw staccato and then glide into sublime
arpeggiated chords..."
Despite pursuing a self-imposed professional anonymity Larsen have
toured Europe extensively, appearing on bills with Neurosis, Breach
and Crash Worship, Ulan Bator, Unsane, Michael Gira, My Cat Is An
Alien, Allun, Ronin and The Living Jarboe, Einsturzende Neubauten
. Additionally, they have worked collectively or with their side
project people as Joseph Budenholzer's Backworld, Damo Suzuki, Lydia
Lunch, Coil/Black Sun Production, Sikhara and HR Giger. The group’s
soundtrack work to Winsor McCay’s animated films, Cartoanimalettimatti,
won a “Best of Show” award at the Harlock/Rimusicazioni
Festival in Italy.
Look for the solo release from Larsen's Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo
on Important as well as the Larsen/Xiu Xiu collaboration... Coming
some time soon.
Reviews
"Play perhaps
surpasses what we thought was a pretty brilliant debut. As with Rever,
Play is a largely instrumental, slowly unfolding, mesmerizing, multi-part
epic of both tranquility and power, anchored in hypnotic drum-grooves
and bathed in
delicate instrumental textures. However inspired, it's Larsen that
has done the hard work here of constructing such a moody monument.
" Aquarius Records, San Francisco
Aquarius Records, SF record of the week for the week of 1.24.05
somewhat inspired by Autechre's music, is even more austere than their
previous album "Rever" , veereing towards the aesthetics
of free-form glitch electronica while retaining the post-rock format.
The breadth and scope of their pieces is awe-inspiring. The album
as a whole sounds like an encyclopedia of new music.
Larsen, who had already proven to be a volcano of innovative ideas,
now contend for the title of most erudite post-everything ensemble.
One can only blame them for being too ambitious.
Piero Scaruffi
"The 4 guitar notes, repeated ad nauseam, that open the first
track of the album mark a boundary between who appreciate and who
hate Larsen. I love them and I can tell u this is their best album
ever.
Slow as a steamboat.
Musical as the birds in the morning.
Mindfucking as a museum of blasphemous art."
- Giacomo Spazio Mojetta in D di Repubblica
"...Larsen's REVER makes the list of
of 'JOHN PAYNE'S 100 MUSICAL BIASES 2002" LA WEEKLY
"If you're troubled by the retrograde state of guitar-based
music, Larsen warrants your attention..." All Music Guide
"They center their songs around the dynamics of multiple guitars,
which may erupt in buzzsaw staccato and then glide into sublime
arpeggiated chords..."The Wire
"This is the soundtrack for bad dreams and good nightmares,
a strange strange world.--Erasing Clouds
"If you are a fan of the Swans, GSYBE, Young Gods or the Ilk,
and you'd like to hear what those bands would sound like softened
at the edges and slowed down to a steady pace, this may be for you.
Think of those bands merged with a dash of Low's melancholic, melodic
slow-core, and you have Larsen. A pleasant meeting all around."
Musicspork
"REVER is something of a catharsis amplifying one’s emotion
and changing his mood exactly when needed. One track will make you
feel tense, the next one will soothe you at exactly the moment you
want to be soothed. There is nothing superfluous in here, only what
is absolutely necessary. The only thing this album is not going
to make you think of is happiness: there is a constant sadness,
some sort of melancholy underlining the music from start to finish.
Just what I need, just what I love.The recording process was peculiar,
so is the band and so is their music. A wonderful record if you’re
not afraid to dare trying it." Musiquemachine
"God, this is beautiful. Tense, frightening ambient landscapes
of static and accordion looped in on themselves, with the occasional
nonsensical vocals that come across as religious chants from a post-apocalyptic
choir...I can't play it while my kid is home, and so nerve-racking
that it actually makes me nauseous. I'm going to buy everything
this band ever puts out." Preamp
"Nino Rota gone goth, or the Italian counterpart to The Swans?
You be the judge.” Waterfront Week
"Larsen had worked and worked themselves into the core of
the rhythm and sounds they generated. Often, a groove would begin
with a certain feel, then transmute entirely by the time they'd
wrung the essence of it into it's final shape, which is what you
hear, in edited form, on this CD. That's why I say they're like
field recordings in a way, to me they're excerpts from a sound/ceremony
that was ongoing, documented by a (hopefully) non-invasive stranger..."
Michael Gira(Swans/Angels Of Light/Young God Records)
“the dream of a shadow which could be the feedback of yr own
emotions with a certain unique and strong quality.” Blow
Up Magazine
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