CALIGINE [2010] TER (WOOL SHOP)

From distant and firewalled China here's the news — Gabriele de Seta of Caligine sends his regards and new sounds. Label Wool Shop recently released Ter, fresh mini-album of Caligine (check out it's marvelous package!). This post aims to promo this release and to help u not to be late to buy it — this CDr is out in terrifying quantity of 30 copies only. It's not the same Caligine as some of u heard already — here the improv side of music is replaced by more songs-alike shape. Noone will say for the sounds better that the author so i asked Gabriele about some textual intro to Ter and here's his words alongside with full-length preview — hope some of u will like this stuff as i did.

Ter is the first recording of Caligine that I do all by myself — not by choice but chance. The record is about dry things. I recorded it in a short session during the scorching summer of 2009 and as the summer dries up water from the world, the same goes for this EP… All the songs are like hundreds of hours of music listening, dried up by that summer, reduced to 22:22 minutes of music (numbers play always an important part in Caligine). It's like a lot of music I like and I listened, the best of it, in three small songs. The starting point is always one central tune, a melody, then I add variations and dynamics, and after some weeks of growing the songs are ready.
With Arida I wanted to catch some kind of mediterranean dry summer tune floating on the beaches at sundown. Like an echo from North Africa spreading over to South Europe… And when the night falls, the songs grows more melodic. "Arida" means "Dry, desert". But it's feminine. Why? A song called "Arida II" featured on a next LP will explain it.
14 Cerchi nell'Acqua is always a play with numbers, is a song about infinity and recursiveness... It clearly draws inspiration from great indian sarod players (the CD is dedicated to Ali Akbar Khan). Of course I'm not even 1/100 good as them, and I just play with my guitar trying to pay homage. "14 Cerchi nell'Acqua" means "14 Circles in the Water". 14 is the number of infinity, and so are circles in the water.
Bu-baf is the more "classic" side of Caligine — I like trancey folk songs with a simple guitar harmony behind them, and I like how repetitive guitar notes intertwine with spoken vocals. In this case, I was not ready to write proper lyrics, so I started from the roots: it's a part of the Proverbs section of the Bible. "Bu-baf (Parole Vuote sull'Uso della Lingua)" means "Bu-baf (Empty Words about the Use of the Tongue)". It's about the right way to speak and act, so I felt necessary to remind that words are ultimately empty, and that the right way to speak is definitely defined using words which are empty themselves, like "bu-baf", a sound that has no meaning. An empty word. Up to you filling them.

This is actually the first EP of this more "structured" Caligine releases... The Minimalia series and some splits are more improvised and experimental. I think I'll keep this collective as a double-faced creature. Also I always liked the role of guitar as an "ambient" instrument, not just a solo or a strumming role. I was listening to a lot of carnatic and hindustani music, where the interaction of strings and droning tones is central, and at the same time I fell in love with North African revival and with contaminations of Mediterranean music and tunes that recalled memory of my childhood summers so, well, obviously great masters as Ali Akbar Khan, Ram Narayan or Raghunat Prasanna brought the Indian form codified freedom, and the work of bands like L'Enfance Rouge or Six Organs of Admittance or the latest Richard Bishop showed me a way to achieve what I had in mind.

G. de Seta

26 Mar 2010

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