With ULERS Two, Federico Ughi explores a much more ambient type of music remote from his work as a free jazz drummer. The acronym in the title stands for "Unrehearsed Live Editing of Recorded Sounds." On a journey from Piazza S. Cosimato, Trastevere, to Via Alberico II, Borgo Pio, in Rome, Ughi made a continuous hourlong field recording: cars, conversations, birds, everything you'd expect from life in the streets of a Mediterranean city. Live, he completes the tape with editing, sampling, and light drum and vocal work. The sound source can be altered in some places, but always as an add-on; the tape itself keeps on running, providing the backbone and time line of the piece. The drums remain very quiet, played with fingers or padded mallets and mixed very low. In the last section, Ughi samples his voice, singing low notes, sculpting ethereal harmonies. This is where his hand can be felt the most. Otherwise, the differences between performance and recording, reality (acoustic playing, original sound) and virtuality (sampled playing, edited sound) remain intentionally blurry. This direction in the drummer's music doesn't come out of nowhere. His previous album on 577 with Daniel Carter, although still referential to jazz, allowed an important focus on live sampling and illustrated his interest in ambient atmospheres. But as innovative the concept behind ULERS Two might be, the music lacks involvement -- until the last movement that is. ~ Fran‡ois Couture
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