Empty Days

With significant involvement in a variety of projects documented for AltrOck and its own sister label, Fading Records, Milan-based composer/guitarist Francesco Zago could draw from a roster of several notable musicians for his Clear Days ensemble, which released an eponymous album on AltrOck in past due 2013. Documented in Milan and many other places in north Italy, the recording reflected two regions of Zago’s then-current musical passions: art rock and roll tracks with occasionally darkly poetic lyrics, and atmospheric ambient-style compositions. Over the album’s total of 14 paths, each vocal music was accompanied by an instrumental quantity, with Zago composing all of the music and penning English-language lyrics for three from the seven tracks. Zago also performed acoustic guitar, Mellotron, and bass, and created and (with Andrea Rizzardo) combined the recording. To understand his creative conception for Clear Times, Zago drew through the lineup of AltrOck’s flagship ensemble, Yugen, for several the musicians included: Paolo “Ske” Botta (keyboards), Jacopo Costa (vibes), Maurizio Fasoli (piano), and Giuseppe Olivini (percussion, theremin). As the music of avant-proggers Yugen is definitely often densely made up in the design of a rock-based chamber ensemble, bandmembers Zago, Fasoli, and Olivini had been no strangers to ambient music, having added deeply ambient sonics to this year’s 2009 AltrOck task Kurai. Six of Clear Times’ vocal paths had been sung by American vocalist Elaine di Falco, including not merely tracks with lyrics penned by Zago but also “In Darkness I WANT TO Dwell,” with lyrics by British Renaissance composer John Dowland; “Operating Drinking water,” with lyrics by Irish poet and playwright Seamus Heaney; and “A Dark Vanessa,” from Vladimir Nabokov’s 1962 book Pale Fireplace. Di Falco acquired previously sung Heaney and Nabokov lyrics for the 2010 Yugen record Iridule. Pat Moonchy, a Milan-based audio/noise musician and improviser, was also regarded a member from the primary Empty Times ensemble, adding her “electrical zen backyard” towards the project. A set of visitor artists had been also mixed up in recording periods: mezzo soprano Rachel O’Brien sang lyrics from another — and notably well-known — Dowland piece, “Stream My Tears”; and cellist Bianca Fervidi performed cello on many monitors. Fervidi, an associate from the modern traditional and avant jazz quartet Sonata Islands, made an appearance over the 2012 AltrOck record Sonata Islands Runs RIO. And coming in contact with upon just one more AltrOck project, Unfilled Times revisited — even more understatedly — a Zago song initial heard over the vintage prog-influenced Wii Signal album released previously in 2013. The Compact disc booklet for Unfilled Times included lyrics for all your music, presented as though excerpted from bigger texts with servings redacted (hence subverting unique meanings) in the design of English designer Tom Phillips’ A Humument: A Treated Victorian Book. Actually, the title from the disc’s last monitor (an ambient piece), “This Night time Wounds Period,” was produced from a fragment of the Humument also found in the recording artwork for Ruler Crimson’s 1974 recording Starless and Bible Dark. In Sept and Oct of 2013, a touring ensemble of Clear Days hit the street for concert looks in north Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. The “Clear Tour” group contains Zago, Fasoli, di Falco, Botta, Olivini, and Costa.