Friday, August 23, 2013

next solo live in berlin - 30. August


30. August 2013
50 Years of Tape
Six Live Acts
Found Tapes Exhibition
The cassette tape got introduced to the world on 30. August 1963 by the Dutch inventor Lou Ottens. It happened during a radio show on the occasion of the Internationale Funk Ausstellung in Berlin. Fifty years later on the exact day and in the same city Tales for Tapes dedicates an evening of tape narration/manipulation to the birthday of the cassette. 2013=C50
The cassette?
image
Hal McGee says: ” I want to stress something: cassettes never really went away. It may seem like they did, but the truth is different. I think it is a mistake to view cassettes from a retro-chic nostalgia angle. I think it is better to view it as a continuum.”
Most of you have never heard of Hal McGee, probably. Journalists only review and radio’s only play the freebies they get from the music industries. That’s why you will be misinformed all the time and kept away from what is happening at the frontiers of audio art.
This year the cassette tape celebrates its 50th birthday. Silent Barn in Brooklyn, New York dedicated an entire day to the humble cassette in March. Probably from here (New York! New York!) rumors started spreading and reached the laptop of a collaborator to TIME magazine, which gave the anniversary, and Lou Ottens some space on their pages.
A few months later in Kobé at the outskirts of Paris two evenings were dedicated to the tape and those who use it as their artistic medium. The event was the talk of the town the days after, when regret came to those who hadn’t visited it.
So, after more then a decade of intense promotion of the cassette as an object by all kinds of designers and fashionists (thank you), and just before the installment of a cassette record store day or how they’d wish to call it by the music industries, you might as well start to wonder what it might be like if you hear people actually use the cassette, not as a mixtape for the little player in your kitchen, but to produce the most intriguing sounds you may have ever heard in your life.
Blasé already? Then stay away and lock yourself up in your FB.
Still reading this? Then here’s your list of actors for the evening. All of them will use a wide variety of cassette players.
Helge Neidhardt aka Der Tapeman is one of the longest running noise acts in Berlin. For this occasion he will bring his KassettenRekorderOrchester (KRO), a collection of more then ten cassette players, some of them real museum pieces, if only the museums would know. The KRO will play tapes from Tapeman’s vast collection and create a wall of sound that might provoke auditive hallucinations.
Preslav Literary School is the boy wonder of the Berlin Tape Scene. The only person who managed to sell out his stash of tapes after a show! With distant melodies and voices, the warmth of the magnetic tape, he is able to evoke a sense  of Englishness with all its melancholy that up to the early sixties only Penguin pockets seemed to hold. Not signed by any major record label because any major record label just doesn’t get it. Arsenal fan.
Claudio Rocchetti played tapes until he got kidnapped by a computer. Fortunately he managed to publish a book just in time. And that saved him. The book is called ‘The Fall of Chrome.’ It is a great title, so that’s why it doesn’t matter if it makes any sense or not. I got the book with one of the hundreds of found tapes that he re-worked. Every copy of the book came with a different tape, you must know. I got Elton John. And you know what Elton, you old tart, it is the best tape you ever made. Pity you don’t know it. The world could have been different. Just a bit maybe, but enough. Claudio, if your concert will be half as good as the re-mix I have, it will be stellar.
Insultor is not DJ Insultor who you know for fucking up French chansons and Balkan pop and Japanese tearjerkers all at the same time. Insultor might come and fuck up French chansons, Balkan pop and Japanese tearjerkers; it is very much probable. But he will also define the watershed. Those who’ll stay are our friends. Those who’ll leave are the followers of fashion who don’t have a clue about nothing, well, maybe about where to show up and how to connect to fffrrrriieeennddss, but in fact it is them who get fucked up by Insultor. Wodka/Juice fan. Ultra Hard Core.
Erik Levander. Erik! Why don’t you perform more often? Well, dear you, who will come to see us, or who will ask their friends who came. This guy is one of the best kept secrets, the inner most inner insider tip, who shied Preslav away with a performance in the Staalplaat basement that can be defined epic, if we’d only had TIME Magazine collaborators around to write about it in twenty years time. Put a load on you, Erik? Too much honour? I showed you the goddamn trade.
(Sorry for this change in style. I am reading American Pastoral by Philip Roth these days.)
Hollands Spoor are two old men and I am one of them. We turn tape music in something chamberesque, sonnetesque, elegant, contrapunctual… swift. If Paganini and Wolfie Mozart were still with us we would make them wear shades. Man, we have more history then you can bear. And we put it out with a few walkman and a couple of tapes. There’s a nice bar and garden outside. But if I find out you were there while Hollands Spoor played, I’ll never talk to you again. Remember? I am one of them. Harold Schellinx the other; and he started his career as a Young Lion, right in the eye of the hurricane that was ULTRA, the post punk movement that hit the Netherlands in the years around 1980. Yes, you snotty kid, we are that old. Older than the cassette. And we came the whole way walking. You know how to walk, now don’t you?
But that just shows you that the cassette tape as an artistic medium is used by and appeals to every generation.
If I were you, I would come. But I am not you, therefore we play.
All indications and the address is to be found on the poster/flyer, cordially designed by Anton Mobin.
Be with us, or miss us. And miss a lot.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Pointless Vanishing Point




My new 12" vinyl is out now thanks to Holidays Records!
Here you can listen to some sounds: vimeo and soundcloud

Write me for info and orders!

Monday, May 13, 2013

Il Giardino Promesso Tumblr

Ecco qui il tumblr del Giardino:
http://giardinopromesso.tumblr.com/

Verrà costantemente aggiornato con tutte le attività dentro e fuori il Giardino. Ospiti, documenti, immagini e video.


Wednesday, May 08, 2013

THIS IS THE END | 8 - 12 May 2013 | Errant Bodies project space | Berlin






THIS IS THE END



| PROGRAM


8 – 12 May
Open Studio > 11.00 – 19.00 h 
with:  Gilles Aubry, El Cocuy, Jacopo Gallico-Marco Giani-Fabio Campagna, Iris Touliatou, O.s.t. project

Friday May 10th
19.00  “Nice Rain” performance and discussion by Gilles Aubry

Saturday May 11th
18.00  “Here Ain't Bodies” live performance by El Cocuy with Bob Meanza, Pillowdiver and Claudio Rocchetti

ERRANT BODIES Project Space
Kollwitzstrasse 97, 10435 Berlin


THIS IS THE END is a research project by Marta Ferretti and Gaia Martino, invited as curators in residency at the Errant Bodies project space. This research investigates the relationship between narration and public space in the specific context of Berlin, in collaboration with artists that propose different points of view on the possibility to imagine a narrative topography of the city. 

Between May 8th and May 12th the Errant Bodies project space, research studio during the residency period, will be open to the public with interventions by Gilles Aubry, El Cocuy, Iris Touliatou and Jacopo Gallico with Marco Giani and Fabio Campagna. In parallel, it will present the curators' specific research about the neighbourhood Prenzlauer Berg, developed during the residency period: in this context the project O.S.T. takes place, it welcomes the kind collaboration of several Berlin based musicians for the composition of site specific soundtracks.

Starting from the idea that space is not merely an abstract concept but it exists in the experience of everyone, public space could be considered as always open. It is an on-going process, a work in progress constantly produced by personal and collective involvement. It is a never ended result, every time determined by how space is oriented, situated and temporalized by the perception of the people. Without strict boundaries, public space could be considered an entity shaped by the processes and by the physical places where communication and exchange arise, wherever is possible negotiation of the parties involved.  We refer to narration as one of these sites of negotiation, as a product of collective tensions where subjectivities may be produced and recognized.  

THIS IS THE END is a frame of reflection about these issues, a space for discussion deliberately left open. All the artists involved have contributed with their point of view to enrich the discussion; finally, the open studio is the occasion for sharing the practical results of these reflections. Working on everyday perception of the city’s space, confronting different practices, from field recordings to live performance, from walking to imagining, from ping pong playing to soundtrack composing, the invited artists reflect in a kaleidoscopic and site specific way on their action into specific places of the city and their memory of collective habitation. 

The video La Danse, "Jedes Dasein scheint in sich rund"? by Jacopo Gallico, Marco Giani and Fabio Campagna is a vision of contemporary society through the investigation of a peculiar place, a public space where are dominant stereotypes like game and ritual, participation and competition, rhythm and circularity, but also youth cultures and gentrification. The work is inspired by the homonymous Henry Matisse´s painting "La Danse" (1909).  

ACT III. On the inconclusive act of hammering a nail into a glass wall is the last part of the triptych narrative The Glass House-Proposals for the realization of three impossible acts by Iris Touliatou. The project is loosely based on Sergei Eisenstein's scenario for 'Glass House' (1926 - 1932), a film that the pioneering director and former architect would unfortunately fail to complete. The script for ACT III unfolds around Mies Van der Rohe's unrealized glass skyscraper for Berlin's Friedrichstrasse in 1921, questions transparency, documents and mythologizes the conflict between the utopias of glass architecture. Touliatou proposes the audition of an original cast recording of the piece, performed in Turin in 2011 and engraved for THIS IS THE END on a 10 inch transparent vinyl.

Nice Rain by Gilles Aubry is a performance that explores the notion of urban sound document from the perspective of a diversity of recording practices and intentions. Including contributions by 25 local and international sound artists, the project will be an attempt to discuss and re-situate the community of field recording practices within the field of intentionality and reflexivity, as possibly opposed to a logic of place.
In the performance Here Ain’t Bodies by El Cocuy, different parts of the city will be connected with each other through the creation of an unusual soundscape that would also encourage the curiosity of the public about their own city. The concert, dislocated in three different parts of Berlin, will be broadcasted in real time at Errant Bodies project space, the only location where it will be possibile to listen to the whole performance.

THIS IS THE END aims to propose a different possibility of considering our relationship with places, using the prism of narrative as a priviliged point of view from which it is possibile to engage with the urban space and imagining a different topography. Like a compass, the Errant Bodies project space is presented now as a possible key to activate a narrative topography of Berlin. It will be the place where artists will write the words ‘THE END’ to their stories and this same end may become the beginning for the experience of other people.


THANKS TO

Brandon Labelle, Vincenzo Gagliardi, Valeria Merlini, Tatjana Fell, Stefania Donzelli, Valentina Marinone, Bob Meanza, Pillowdiver, Claudio Rocchetti, Da Baffi, Altes Finanzamt, Buchhandlung LeseGlück, Luca Facci, Davide Pizzoli, Iku Sakan, Francesco Provenzano, Jan Preißler, Ralf Helfrich, Fabio Carboni.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Il Giardino Promesso





Venerdì 3 maggio alle ore 18:30,

Forte Marghera
, Padiglione Palmanova - Mestre (VE)



Eventi-Arte-Venezia presenta al pubblico Il Giardino Promesso - Appunti per una botanica manzoniana, un’installazione botanica di Claudio Rocchetti realizzata nel cuore del parco di Forte Marghera. A partire da venerdì 3 maggio 2013 il Giardino ospiterà un ciclo di performance sonore che dureranno per tutto il mese di maggio 2013:





venerdì 3 maggio: Claudio Rocchetti

venerdì 17 maggio: Ottaven

venerdì 24 maggio: Enrico Malatesta, Attila Faravelli & Matija Schellander

venerdì 31 maggio: Kam Hassah




Il Giardino Promesso - Appunti per una botanica manzoniana è un’installazione botanica che prende forma dalla lettura e dallo studio del XXXIII capitolo del romanzo I Promessi Sposi, nel quale l’autore descrive con dovizia di particolari un giardino abbandonato elencando ogni pianta ospitata al suo interno. Il fascino suscitato delle pagine del Manzoni di fronte allo spettacolo dell’abbandono, quasi anticipa quell'idea di “giardino senza giardiniere” che avrà una importanza centrale nel concetto di “Terzo paesaggio”, sviluppato da Gilles Clément nella seconda metà del novecento.

Questa suggestione ha colpito Claudio Rocchetti, la cui ricerca è da tempo incentrata sul rapporto tra abbandono e memoria.

In seguito ad una visita a Forte Marghera, l’artista ha individuato un’area specifica in cui dar luogo a questa fascinazione: il Giardino Promesso è un’installazione botanica realizzata con tutte e 20 le piante citate nella descrizione del giardino di Manzoni, una scultura-ambiente in continuo mutamento, situata in un prato del parco di Forte Marghera, tra un albero ormai caduto e un terrapieno difensivo.

Nel Giardino Promesso varie piante da frutto e altre erbe sono lasciate libere di crescere e svilupparsi: un giardino lasciato a se stesso, alla spontanea vitalità vegetale, un luogo dove le specie solitamente eliminate prosperano e si moltiplica la varietà e diversità, anche con semi portati dagli uccelli o dal vento che producono piante a sorpresa incredibili.

L’installazione botanica è introdotta e accompagnata da una serie di apparati didattici appositamente sviluppati, grazie ai quali il pubblico potrà leggere il testo tratto dal romanzo ma anche riconoscere le specie arboree impiegate e capirne la simbologia in relazione al testo originario.


Ciclo di performance sonore


Il Giardino Promesso accoglie un ciclo di performance sonore di musicisti italiani ed europei, programmate per tutto il mese di maggio 2013. Questi appuntamenti dedicati al suono hanno lo scopo di mettere in relazione la ricerca musicale contemporanea a un particolare paesaggio e a due temi: l’abbandono e la memoria.

Claudio Rocchetti descrive la musica come “un sistema di addii”, in cui ad ogni nota che muore ne succede da un’altra, che ne mantiene vivo il ricordo. All’interno di questa fisica del suono emerge il rapporto con la vita vegetale perché, come il seme scompare con la crescita della pianta, così il frutto succede al fiore, mantenendone il ricordo e la possibilità di riproduzione.

Il ciclo di performance sonore sarà aperto al pubblico e gratuito. Tutti gli appuntamenti sonori si terranno presso l’installazione botanica de ll Giardino Promesso - Padiglione Palmanova di Forte Marghera - con inizio al tramonto di ogni venerdì (20.30 circa).


"perché i pratini ben tosati sono una specie di deserto che non insegna niente, simbolo del moderno deserto interiore, il quale più o meno somiglia a una moquette."


Ermanno Cavazzoni




Il progetto è ideato da Claudio Rocchetti e curato da Eventi-Arte-Venezia per Parco del Contemporaneo 2013, in partenariato con la Regione del Veneto e con il sostegno e patrocinio del Comune di Venezia - Assessorato all’Ambiente, alle Politiche Giovanili e alla Città Sostenibile; Presidenza del Consiglio comunale ; il progetto è finanziato da Università Cà Foscari - Fondi per le attività studentesche e sostenuto dal Forum Austriaco di Cultura e dalla cooperativa Controvento.






Sunday, March 10, 2013

In Zaire "White Sun Black Sun" LP!

After a couple of years touring and searching the right sound, finally, our first LP is about to be released!!

The official release date is March 19th...

You can listen at two preview here:




or if you are a Spotify user click here

For info and pre-orders of the LP: Tannen Records or Sound of Cobra
Cd: Off-set
Tape: Who Can You Trust?

Saturday, February 16, 2013

The Fall Of Chrome - Book + Tape


CLAUDIO ROCCHETTI
The Fall Of Chrome
Book + Cs edition of 300

After many years experimenting with tapes — alone or in collaborations with others — I started to feel lost; like I had exhausted the subject and all ideas. Perhaps I was too influenced by the new wave of cassette culture. Pretentious thoughts started coming to mind.
Without any new ideas on the matter, I took a break. I stopped using tapes during live shows as well as during recordings. Why not break new ground?
Following months of emptiness and dead end streets, I asked myself; does it really matter why we use certain tools? Is it worthwhile to question myself and waste time on such things?
Those new questions seemed too important and too broad — perhaps too naive — to answer by myself. So I turned to those musicians who had used tapes in all possible ways, some before me, some in collaboration with me and, some even after me. Almost all of them replied; some pretended they didn’t understand the question, whilst others gave me very precise answers. Others still, raised new questions.
In the meantime, I collected a large quantity of tapes, found on the street - in all sorts of unimaginable places - and started working with them. This process resulted in a 3-hour long composition that I later recorded back onto the original tapes; 300 casettes in total, each with different portions of the composition interacting with the source material.

Artists involved:
Kam Hassah, Brendan Murray, Ralf Wehowsky, Guillaume Siffert, Riccardo Benassi, Howard Stelzer, Daniela Cascella, Mattin & Ray Brassier, Marcel Turkowsky, Yan Jun, Jérôme Noetinger, Joseph Hammer, Lionel Marchetti, John Olson, Massimiliano Bomba, Harold Schellinx, Rinus Van Aleebeck, Maurizio Bianchi, Francesco Cavaliere. 

write me here: claudio(dot)rocchetti (at) gmail.com for info and orders!!



Saturday, January 12, 2013

The Fall Of Chrome Tour




25/01 - Milano - Birrificio La Cruda

http://www.lacruda.it/

26/01 - Torino - Velvet (+Gesuco Razzati)

http://www.facebook.com/events/184761618329641/

27/01 - Genova - Spazio Targa

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spazio-Targa/336880139936

28/01 - Varese

Argonight #2 @ Secret Place (prov. VA) - INFO: eventi@frohike.it

29/01 - Ravenna - Cisim (+Giovanni Lami +Camusi +Cacao)

http://www.facebook.com/events/461430443920997/?fref=ts

30/01 - Pistoia - Nub

http://associazioneculturalenub.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/events/130243080473355

31/01 - Bologna - Raum

http://www.facebook.com/events/313256532117030
http://www.xing.it/event/331/the_fall_of_chrome

01/02 - Udine - Casaupa

http://casaupa.blogspot.de/

02/02 - Venezia - 94tapes tba

http://www.94tapes.org/

03/02 - Vittorio Veneto - Codalunga

http://www.codalunga.org/home.html

06/02 - Bologna - Strada Maggiore 49, Casa Arcangeli (with Giuseppe De Mattia)

http://www.spaziolabo.it/mostre/18-gennaio-2013-strada-maggiore-49-casa-arcangeli-mostra-personale-di-giuseppe-de-mattia/

07/02 - Rovereto (TN) - Loco's

https://www.facebook.com/barlocos

The Fall Of Chrome (Musica Moderna, 2013 - Book + Tape)

Con i contributi di: Kam Hassah, Brendan Murray, Ralf Wehowsky, Guillaume Siffert, Riccardo Benassi, Howard Stelzer, Daniela Cascella, Mattin & Ray Brassier, Marcel Turkowsky, Yan Jun, Jérôme Noetinger, Joseph Hammer, Lionel Marchetti, John Olson, Massimiliano Bomba, Harold Schellinx, Rinus Van Aleebeck, Maurizio Bianchi, Francesco Cavaliere.