[ Recensioni / Reviews ]
NIMH + M.B.: Secluded Truths (CD 2005 - Silentes)
An other recent touching, grandiose melancholic electronic voyage from Maurizio Bianchi. Published the same year than the outstanding "A.M.B Iehn Tale" this new effort provides once again ultimately gorgeous transcending soundscapings obtained by different waves of synth textural ambiences and a variety of tape loops. This album is slightly more evident, also more various and colourful, always bringing long epic musical "tragedies". The presence of Giuseppe Verticchio (from the psych-ambient NIMH) who also collaborates on "Together's symphony" brings something new to this last musical "cycle". "Before the light" is a ghostly, disintegrating piece for tape voices and droney soundscapes. A deep sounding like experience, almost physical! "Other prayers" is an oxidizing composition, featuring an imitation of church organ with background noises and obscured, spherical sounds. Dark and delicate. "The sacred outside" is a piano based piece in the genre of materials ever developed in "AMB Iehn Tale" & "M.I. Nheem Alysm"; the "liturgical", "religious", “ultra-minimalist” theme for piano is punctuated and destroyed by unclean, decaying melodies. "Leaving the Time" is a heavy distorted sonic experimentation with deep echoing industrial effects. "The World Beyond" is a moody, mesmerising "elegiac" composition for long monotonous synth chords (similar to Schulze in his most intense, "gothic" ambiences), electronic drums and reverberations. Gloomy and emotionally charged electronic/synth exercises. Just beautiful and timeless!
- Philippe Blache - Progarchives
Nuova collaborazione per M.B., questa volta con Giuseppe Verticchio, che nel contesto della sua etichetta Oltre il Suono ha pubblicato diversi CD-R, a suo nome, e con la sigla che gli appartiene, Nimh. Su una base concepita da Maurizio e l'intervento successivo con effetti, loops, strumentazione acustica e remix di Verticchio, "Secluded Truths" è un percorso mirato alla ricerca di una verità spirituale sfuggente ma che non per questo condanna alla resa, varata nella spessa coltre buia che grava su "Before the Light", per attraversare l'ambient non priva di solforosi ribollìi industriali di "Other Prayers", le inquietudini che si riflettono nel cosmico fluire di "Secluded Truths", il minimalismo dark ambient pregno di turbativi presagi di "The Sacred Outside", episodio non meno che eccellente, con un piano che lentamente scolora stridìi metallici sullo sfondo, le purificanti asperità da valicare di "Leaving the Time", ripresa anche ad epilogo come memoria rimembrata con sollevato distacco, sino ad una ascendente "The World Beyond" che nel suo multicolore turbinìo sembra preludio all'afferare quanto anelato.
- Paolo Bertoni - Blow Up
"Secluded Truths", the newest production by Maurizio Bianchi and Giuseppe Verticchio (Nimh) is a really amazing work concerning the concept itself (showing similarities and parallels of Maurizio's and Giuseppe's life-path) and the structurized sound-sculpturing. Each piece shows much variety in overlapping complex sound-fields, partly combined with acoustic instruments. Starting with very clean ambiences in "Before the Light" the sedative and weightless atmosphere is very soon combined with reverse voices that constantly appear and disappear. The second track "Other Prayers" excellently underlines the similiar spiritual tendencies of both musicians by presenting two harmonic fields on each channel within the sound -panorama but at various pitches. Completely astonishing is the title-track itself with its breathless running sequence integrated into a deep cosmic field; it stays completely in the background while the gloomy cosmic texture remains the dominant acoustic factor. "The Sacred Outside" very well combines Maurizio's incomparable piano-treatments embedded in another cosmic realm of high pitched frequencies and environmental noise, whereas the CD's longest soundscape "Leaving the Time" interrupts the meditative and harmonic passages by fascinating dissonant psychedelia-modulations. Surprisingly the last two elaborations "The World Beyond" and "Leaving the Time (Reprise)" re-establish the original harmonic tendency of the whole album by beautiful melodic fragments mainly realized by acoustic and electric instrumentation. Spiritual music full of tension, innovative sound-combinations and a perfect mixture of harmonic and dissonant material. Very interesting are the slight relations to the cover-design of Maurizio's new masterpiece "Niddah Emmhna".
- Siegmar Fricke - Pharmakustik