Italian musician Alessandro Bosetti has been experimenting with voices for several years now. And his newest release Autumnal Sisters finds him continuing down this path whilst adding a visual component. This DVD, which features seven improvisations and lasts 66 minutes long, comes courtesy of Manual records in Korea. The press release for Autumnal Sisters is as follows:
Autumnal Sisters recollects seven performances by Alessandro Bosetti, in solo and teaming up with writer Kim Taeyong and video maker Orolo.
In the seven short films of this collection – filmed in Seoul in 2013 – you experience the unedited original performances which have been reframed and juxtaposed with a series of visual cues and interventions. The seven episodes of Autumnal Sisters are part experimental videos, part performative documents, and part visual poems with a strong sonorous aspect.
They alternate English, Italian and Korean languages and are accompanied by bilingual subtitles. They are so far the most comprehensive documents of Alessandro Bosetti’s recent work as a performer and improviser which in the past decade has progressively mutated from music to language. All performances kick off from improvisations made using MaskMirror, a musical instrument which takes language rather than sound as it’s main material. The player / instrument relation is ambiguous whereas the performer or a combination of two or three performers appears to be played by the instrument itself or at least to be entangled in a performative and conversational dispositive.
When language is freed from the constraints of generally accepted discourse, it necessarily falls into ridicule or provocation as most of word combinations appear to be forbidden. So forbidden that we never think about them. The others look at us with surprise “Is that really possible to say what has just been said ?” while we have indeed no idea of what – in our discourseincomprehensible to ourselves – could have provoked such a scandal.
Autumnal Sisters marks the first release from Ryu Hankil's Manual label since 2013. Kim Taeyong has appeared on the label before as part of the group A. Typist and with Lee Youngji and Ryu Hankil on Profile. You can order the DVD directly from the Manual site here. For those in Europe, Autumnal Sisters will also be available via Metamkine and SoundOhm shortly. Watch a clip from the DVD below.