Saturday, September 22, 2012

Episode 21: Ghosts along Desire Pt. 1

Clarence John Laughlin, "4 Vision of Dead Desire", 1954

"I deny selflessness. If all would be for free, in all societies all has had to be desolation, all has had to be suicide. We grow weary with all that isn't the price of a fight: this is Nietzsche's greatness. [...] You can have a generous behaviour, but this whouldn't be good for our society."

Pierre Klossowski

Boris Tishchenko: Concerto for cello, 17 wind instruments & percussion - Performer: Mtislav Rostropovic [22.53] - Frédéric Chopin: Marche Funèbre from Piano Sonata No. 2 in b flat minor Op. 35 "Funeral March" - Performer: Vladimir Horowitz [7.00] - Alban Berg: Allegro, Adagio from Violin Concerto - Performer: Louis Krasner [16.25] - Henri Pousseur: Mobile for 2 pianos - Performers: Alfons and Aloys Kontarski [10.09] - Arnold Schoenberg: Fantasy for Violin and Piano Op. 47 - Performers: Gidon Kremer and Oleg Maisenberg [7.45] - Carmelo Bene performs Robert Schumann / Lord Byron: Ouverture from Manfred [13.25]

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic and search for 'completecommunion'. To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it, or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com


Saturday, September 15, 2012

Episode 20 - Power, Corruption & Lies

Peter Saville - Contour for Arkitip No. 49
New Order: All The Way from "Technique" (1989) [3.24] - Warsaw: Novelty from "Warsaw" (1978) [3.50] - New Order: Blue Monday from"Power, Corruption & Lies" (1983) [7.29] - Warsaw: They Walked in Line from "Warsaw" (1978) [2.41] - New Order: Doubts Even Here from "Movement" (1981) [4.19] - Joy Division: These Days from "Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979" (2003) [3.42] - New Order: Turn My Way from "Get Ready" (2001) [5.05] - Joy Division: Living In The Ice Age from "Form and Substance - Eidenhoven 1980" (1980) [3.02] - New Order: Sub Culture from "Low Life" (1985) [5.06] - Joy Division: Failures from "An Ideal for Living" (1978) [3.44] - New Order: Truth from "Movement"(1981) [4.39] - Joy Division: The Only Mistake from "The Factory: Manchester Live 13 July 1979" [4.11] - New Order: Ultraviolence from "Power, Corruption & Lies" (1983) [4.51] - Joy Division: Colony from "High Wycombe Town Hall Live 20 February 1980" [4.05] - New Order: Vanishing Point from "Technique" (1989) [5.17] - Joy Division: Komakino from "Substance: 1977-1980" (1992) [3.52]

This week NME Mag made me think about Ian Curtis and Joy Division, and the beautiful covers by Peter Saville.

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic and search for 'completecommunion'. To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it, or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Episode 19 - First Symptoms

Robert Flynt - Compound Fracture
Luc Ferrari: Société II, et si le piano était un corps de femme for piano, 3 percussions and 16 instruments (1967) [27.13] - Mauricio Kagel: Match Fur 3 Spieler (1964) [26.08] - Gyorgy Ligeti: Atmosphères for full orchestra (1960-1) [8.49] - Edgar Varèse: Hyperprism for small orchestra and percussion (1923) [4.34] - Luciano Berio: Différences for 5 instruments and magnetic tape (1959) [14.56] - Henry Pousseur: Mobile for 2 pianos (1957-58) [10.09]

This podcast episode is dedicated to all the photographers who worked in defining a new relationship between structures and aural qualities of sound/image as many post-serialist composers.

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic and search for 'completecommunion'. To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it, or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Episode 18 - Destroy All Music


T Rex: 20th Century Boy from “Tanx” (1973) [3.37] – The Stooges: Fun House from “Fun House” (1970) [7.47] – Contortions: I can’t Stand Myself from “No New York” (1978) [4.43] – Flying Luttenbachers: Demonic Velocities 20,000,000 Volts from “Destroy All Music” (1995) [3.49] – Velvet Underground: Sister Ray from “White Light/White Heat” (1968) [17.27] – Nation of Ulysses: Look out Soul is Back from “13 Point Program to Destroy America” (1991) [1.39] – Lydia Lunch: Atomic Bongos from “Queen of Siam” (1980) [2.18] – Arthur Russell: Soon to be Innocent Fun/Let’s See from “World of Echo” (1986) [9.32] – Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: Hot Head from “Doc at the Radar Station” (1980) [3.23] – Pere Ubu: Caligari’s Mirror from “Dub Housing” (1978) [3.49] – My Bloody Valentine: Clair from “Ecstasy and Wine” (1987) [2.33] – David Bowie: Suffragette City from “Ziggy Stardust” (1972) [3.25] – Television: See No Evil from “Marquee Moon” (1977) [3.53]


Glam Rock and No Wave. And the likes. Collapsing and make up as he same: denying any given image of 'the essential'. Rock'n'roll as tibetan chant. Enjoy!

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic and search for 'completecommunion'. To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it, or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Episode 17 - Oum Kalthoum


Umm Kulthum (Arabic: أم كلثوم‎ ʾUmm Kulṯūm; Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [omme kælˈsuːm]; born فاطمة إبراهيم السيد البلتاجي Fātimah ʾIbrāhīm as-Sayyid al-Biltāǧī, [ˈfɑtˤmɑ (ʔe)bɾˤɑˈhiːm esˈsæjjed elbelˈtæːɡi]; see Kunya) (December 30, 1898 – February 3, 1975) was an Egyptian singer, songwriter, and actress. Born in Tamay ez-Zahayra village, which belongs to El Senbellawein, she is known as the Star of the East (kawkab el-sharq). More than three decades after her death, she is widely regarded as the greatest female singer in Arabic music history.



To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic and search for 'completecommunion'. To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it, or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Episode 16 - Jarboe, the Living


Swans: Swallow You from “New Mind” (1987) - [4.16] Byla and Jarboe: 15:35 from “Viscera” (2007) [16.31] – Swans: Can’t Find my way Home from “The Burning World” (1989) [4.48] – Jarboe: Mouth of Flames from “Mahakali” (2008) [4.43] - Swans: Hypogirl from “Soundtracks for the Blind” (1996) [2.44] – Jarboe: Mississippi from “Anhedoniac” (1998) [1.44] – Swans: Children of God from “Children of God” (1986) [4.22] – Jarboe: Scarification from “Disburden Discipline” (2000) [5.03] – Swans: Mother/Father from “The Great Annihilator” (1994) [4.07] – Jarboe: My Buried Child from “Sacrificial Cake” (1995) [2.11] – Swans: Greed from “Greed/Holy Money” (1985) [6:12]

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic and search for 'completecommunion'. To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it, or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Episode 15 - Persistence of Time


Iron Maiden: The Ides of March/Wratchild from “Killers” (1980) [3.99] - Black Sabbath: The Sign of the Southern Cross/Heaven and Hell (continued) from “Live/Evil” (1982) [7.16] - W.A.S.P.: Inside the Electric Circus from “Inside the Electric Circus” (1986) [3.26] - Testament: Over the Wall from “The Legacy” (1987) [4.06] - Scorpions: Big City Nights from “Love at First Sting” (1984) [4.10] - Alice Cooper: Teenage Frankenstein from “Constrictor” (1986) [3.32] - Led Zeppelin: Whole Lotta Love from “Led Zeppelin II” (1969) [5.34] - Van Halen: Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love from “Van Halen II” (1978) [3.50] - Judas Priest: Beyond the Realms of Death from “Stained Class” (1978) [6.51] - Metallica: Master of Puppets from “Master of Puppets” (1986) [8.36] – Dillinger Escape Plan: Unretrofied from “Miss Machine” (2004) [5.37] - Kylesa: Insomnia for Months from “Static Tensions” (2009) [2.04] - Motorhead: Ace of Spades from “Ace of Spades” (1980) [2.49] - Anthrax: Got the Time from “Persistence of Time” (1990) [2.44]

This episode of Complete Communion Podcast is dedicated to my youth. Most of this music is what I was listening to when 17, and I'm still proud of it.

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic and search for 'completecommunion'. To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it, or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Episode 14 - Explosions in the Sky


Godspeed You Black Emperor: East Hastings from “F#A#Infinity” (1998) [17.58] – John Fahey: How Green Was My Valley from “The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death” () [2.18] – Trans Am: Ragged Agenda from “Red Line” (2000) [3.40] – Tim Buckley: Starsailor from “Starsailor” (1970) [4.35] – Don Caballero: Cold Knees (In April) from “Don Caballero 2” (1995) [10.59] – Robbie Basho: Seal of the Blue Lotus from “The Seal of the Blue Lotus” (1965) [7.10] - Fugazi: Link Track from “Instrument Soundtrack” (1999) [1.26] – Shellac: Song of the Minerals from “At Action Park” (1994) [4.24] – Minutemen: Nature Without Man from “Double Nickels on the Dime” (1984) [1.46] – Stereolab: The Noise of Carpet from “Emperor Tomato Ketchup” (1996) [3.05] – June of 44: June Leaf from “Tropic and Meridians” (1996) [5.10]

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic and search for 'completecommunion'. To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it, or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Episode 13 - Patterns

The Rotkho Chapel

Krzysztof Penderecki: Canticum Canticorun Salomonis (1970/73) [16.52]
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti: Cinque Sintesi Radiofoniche from “Musica Futurista – The Art of noises” (1980) [13.08]
Harry Partch: Time of Fun Together from “Delusion of the Fury” (1969) [8.08]
Joan La Barbara and John Cage: Sonnekus from “Singing Through” (1990) [17.08]
Morton Feldman: The Rothko Chapel (1971) [23.47]


To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic and search for 'completecommunion'. To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it, or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Episode 12 - Signs/Reality Transitions [Pt. 2]


Ryoji Ikeda: + from “+/-“ [10.55] (1996) - Witold Lutoslawski: Cello Concerto (1970) [23.05] - Ryoji Ikeda: - from “+/-“ [6.36] (1996) - Olivier Messiaen: Séquence du Verbe, Cantique Divin (Dieu Présent en lui-meme) from “Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine (1943-1944) [6.46] - Ryoji Ikeda: - from “+/-“ [11.51] (1996) - Giacinto Scelsi: Quattro Pezzi su una Nota Sola II (1959)[4.40] - Ryoji Ikeda: - from “+/-“ [13.24] (1996) - Pierre Schaeffer & Pierre Henry: Les Monstres from “Orphée” [3.25] (1953) - Ryoji Ikeda: +-- from “+/-“ [1.05] (1996)


To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic and search for 'completecommunion'. To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it, or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com



Saturday, July 14, 2012

Episode 11 – Signs/reality transitions [pt. 1]


Helmut Lachenmann: Dal Niente (Intérieur III) for clarinet solo (1970) [14.21]
Ryoji Ikeda: + from “+/-“ (1996) [2.50]
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Zeitmasse for five woodwinds (1955-56) [12.51]
Ryoji Ikeda: + from “+/-“ [5.57] (1996)
Luigi Nono: stage music from Ermittlung (1965) [22.12]

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic website and search for 'completecommunion'.
To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com




Sunday, July 8, 2012

Episode 10 – They say don’t worry (for James Baldwin)


Curtis Mayfield: Don’t Worry (if there’s a Hell Below) from “Curtis” (1970) [7.51] – Terry Callier: Bowlin’ Green from “Just Can’t Help Myself” (1974) [7.57] - Serge Gainsbourg: Brigade des Stups from “Aux Armes Et Caetera” (1979) [2.05] – Sam Cooke: A Change is Gonna Come from “Ain’t That Good News” (1964) [3.14] – Pop Group: Don’t Call me Pain from “Y” (1979) [5.35] – Nina Simone: Backlash Blues from “Protest Anthology” (2008) [3.03] – Al Green: Listen from “Let’s Stay Together” (1971) [2.30] – Betty Davis: If I’m in Luck I might get Picked up from “Betty Davis” (1973) [5.00] – Laura Nyro: Eli’s Comin’ from “Eli and the 13th Confession” (1968) [3.58] – Booker T. and the Mg’s: Green Onions from “Green Onions” (1962) [2.55] – Carla Bozulich: Baby That’s the Creeps from “Evangelista” (2006) [5.55] – Nancy Sinatra w/ Lee Hazelwood: Some Velvet Morning (1967) [3.38] – Led Zeppelin: No Quarter from “The Song Remains The Same” (1976) [12.29] – Doris Duke: By the Time I get to Phoenix from “The Swamp Dog Sessions and More” (2005) [4.01] – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: I had a Dream, Joe from “Henry’s Dream” (1992) [3.42] – Johnny Cash: God’s Gonna Cut You Down from “American V: A Hundred Highways” (2003) [2.38]

James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.
Baldwin's essays, such as the collection Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th-century America, vis-à-vis their inevitable if unnameable tensions with personal identity, assumptions, uncertainties, yearning, and questing. Some Baldwin essays are book-length, for instance The Fire Next Time (1963), No Name in the Street (1972), and The Devil Finds Work (1976).
His novels and plays fictionalize fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures thwarting the equitable integration of not only blacks yet also of male homosexuals—depicting as well some internalized impediments to such individuals' quest for acceptance—namely in his second novel, Giovanni's Room (1956), written well before the equality of homosexuals was widely espoused in America. Baldwin's best-known novel is his first, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953).

[from Wikipedia]

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic website and search for 'completecommunion'.
To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Episode 9 – “The event doesn’t shuffle with the expression” - Gilles Deleuze


Borbetomagus: A1 from “New York Performances” (1986) [10.14] - Björk: Öll Birtan from “Medùlla” (2004) [1.52] - Grave Temple: II from “Ambient_Ruin” (2008) [17.35] - Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza: Perfect Union (Trio Per) from “The Private Sea of Dreams” (1967) [5.52] - Demetrio Stratos: Passaggi from “Cantare la Voce” (1978) [5.19] - Kim Myhr, Burkhard Beins, Karl Ronnekleiv & Nils Ostendorf: Ringve Concert Pt. 1 from “Live at Ringve Museum” (2011) [12.31] - Hassan El Gharbi: Hidjaz from “Le Qanoun Enchanté” (1970) [6.56] - AMM: Ailantus Glandulosa from “AMMMusic” (1966) [5.31] - Meshuggah: Rational Gaze from “Nothing” (2006) [5.26]


Gilles Deleuze is a key figure in postmodern French philosophy. Considering himself an empiricist and a vitalist, his body of work, which rests upon concepts such as multiplicity, constructivism, difference and desire, stands at a substantial remove from the main traditions of 20th century Continental thought. His thought locates him as an influential figure in present-day considerations of society, creativity and subjectivity.  Notably, within his metaphysics he favored a Spinozian concept of a plane of immanence with everything a mode of one substance, and thus on the same level of existence.  He argued, then, that there is no good and evil, but rather only relationships which are beneficial or harmful to the particular individuals.  This ethics influences his approach to society and politics, especially as he was so politically active in struggles for rights and freedoms.  Later in his career he wrote some of the more infamous texts of the period, in particular, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. These texts are collaborative works with the radical psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, and they exhibit Deleuze’s social and political commitment.

Gilles Deleuze began his career with a number of idiosyncratic yet rigorous historical studies of figures outside of the Continental tradition in vogue at the time. His first book, Empirisism and Subjectivity, isa study of Hume, interpreted by Deleuze to be a radical subjectivist. Deleuze became known for writing about other philosophers with new insights and different readings, interested as he was in liberating philosophical history from the hegemony of one perspective. He wrote on Spinoza, Nietzche, Kant, Leibniz and others, including literary authors and works, cinema, and art.   Deleuze claimed that he did not write “about” art, literature, or cinema, but, rather, undertook philosophical “encounters” that led him to new concepts.  As a constructivist, he was adamant that philosophers are creators, and that each reading of philosophy, or each philosophical encounter, ought to inspire new concepts. Additionally, according to Deleuze and his concepts of difference, there is no identity, and in repetition, nothing is ever the same.  Rather, there is only difference: copies are something new, everything is constantly changing, and reality is a becoming, not a being.

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic website and search for 'completecommunion'.
To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com


Sunday, June 24, 2012

Episode 8 – Dedicated to Peter Brötzmann and Henry Grimes


Don Cherry: Symphony for Improvisers from “Symphony for Improvisers” (1966) [19.44] – Peter Brötzmann, Fred Hopkins, Rashied Ali: No Messages from “Songlines” (1994) [12.38] – Sonny Rollins: Summertime from “Sonny Meets Hawk” (1963) [5.56] – Peter Brötzmann and Keiji Haino: excerpt from “Evolving Blush or Driving Original Sin” (1997) [10.15] – Marc Ribot Spiritual Unity: Spirits (live broadcast) [9.14] – Peter Brötzmann: Tell a Green Man from “Nipples” (1969) [15.32] – Henry Grimes Trio: Flowers for Albert from “Live at the Kerava Jazz Festival” (2004) [7.48]

Henry Grimes (born November 3, 1935, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a jazz double bassist, violinist, and poet. After more than a decade of activity and performance, notably as a leading bassist in free jazz, Grimes completely disappeared from the music scene by 1970. Grimes was often presumed dead, but he was rediscovered in 2002 and returned to performing. As a child, Grimes took up violin, tuba, English horn, percussion, and finally the double bass at age 13 or 14. At Juilliard, established a reputation as a versatile bassist in the mid 1950s. He recorded or performed with saxophonists Gerry Mulligan and Sonny Rollins, pianist Thelonious Monk, singer Anita O'Day, clarinetist Benny Goodman and many others. When bassist Charles Mingus was experimenting with a second bass player in his band, Grimes was the person he selected for the job.
Gradually growing interested in free jazz, Grimes performed with most of the music's important names, including pianist Cecil Taylor, trumpeter Don Cherry, saxophonists Steve Lacy, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, and Albert Ayler. He released one album, The Call as a trio leader for the ESP-Disk record label in 1965.

In the late 1960s, Grimes career came to a halt after his move to California. It was commonly assumed Grimes had died. Then Marshall Marrotte, a social worker and jazz fan, set out to discover Grimes's fate once and for all. In 2003, he found Grimes alive but nearly destitute, without a bass to play, renting a tiny apartment in Los Angeles, California, writing poetry and doing odd jobs to support himself. He had fallen out of touch with the jazz world and was unaware Albert Ayler had died, but was eager to perform again. Word spread of Grimes's 'resurrection', and some musicians and fans offered their help. Bassist William Parker donated a bass (nicknamed "Olive Oil", for its distinctive greenish color) and with David Gage's help had it shipped from New York to Los Angeles, and others assisted with travel expenses and arranging performances. Grimes's return was featured in The New York Times and on National Public Radio. A documentary film is planned, as is a biography.


Peter Brötzmann (born 6 March 1941) is a German artist and free jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.
Brötzmann is among the most important European free jazz musicians. His rough timbre is easily recognized on his many recordings. He studied painting in Wuppertal and was involved with the Fluxus movement, but grew dissatisfied with art galleries and exhibitions. He experienced his first real jazz concert when he saw American jazz musician Sidney Bechet while still in school at Wuppertal, and it made a lasting impression. Brötzmann has designed most of his own album covers. He first taught himself to play various clarinets, then saxophones; he is also known for playing the tárogató. Among his first musical partnerships was that with double bassist Peter Kowald.
For Adolphe Sax, Brötzmann's first recording, was released in 1967 and featured Kowald and drummer Sven-Åke Johansson.
1968, the year of political turmoil in Europe, saw the release of Machine Gun, an octet recording often listed among the most notable free jazz albums. Originally the LP was self-produced (under his own "BRO" record label imprint) and sold at gigs, but it was later marketed by Free Music Production (FMP), In 2007, Chicago-based Atavistic Records reissued the Machine Gun recording.

The album Nipples was recorded in 1969 with many of the Machine Gun musicians including drummer Han Bennink, pianist Fred Van Hove and tenor saxophonist Evan Parker, plus British free-improv guitarist Derek Bailey. The second set of takes from these sessions, appropriately called More Nipples, is more raucous. Fuck De Boere (Dedicated to Johnny Dyani) is a live album of free sessions from these early years, containing two long improvisations, a 1968 recording of "Machine Gun" live (earlier than the studio version) and a longer jam from 1970.
The logistical difficulties of touring with an octet resulted in Brötzmann eventually slimming the group to a trio with Han Bennink and Fred Van Hove. Larger groups were put together again later, for example in 1981 Brötzmann made a radio broadcast with Frank Wright and Willem Breuker (saxes), Toshinori Kondo (trumpet), Hannes Bauer and Alan Tomlinson (trombones), Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano), Louis Moholo (drums), Harry Miller (bass). This was released as the album Alarm. In the 1980s, Brötzmann flirted with heavy metal and noise rock, including a stint in Last Exit and subsequent recordings with Last Exit's bass guitarist and producer Bill Laswell.
Brötzmann has remained active, touring and recording regularly. He has released over fifty albums as a bandleader, and has appeared on dozens more. His "Die Like A Dog Quartet" (with Toshinori Kondo, William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake) is loosely inspired by saxophonist Albert Ayler, a prime influence on Brötzmann's music. Since 1997 he has toured and recorded regularly with the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet (initially an Octet).

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic website and search for 'completecommunion'.
To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Episode 7 – Iannis Xenakis: electronic and acoustic music


Voyage absolu des Unari vers Andromède for 2-channel tape (1989) [15.29]
Metastasis for orchestra (1953-4) [9.03]
Keren for trombone solo (1986) [6.41]
Pitoprakta for trombone, percussions and strings (1956) [9.43]
Khoai for harpsicord solo (1976) [16.47]
Jonchaies for large orchestra (1977) [17.27]

Iannis Xenakis (May 29, 1922 – February 4, 2001) was a Greek composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. After 1947, he fled Greece, becoming a naturalized citizen of France. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers. Xenakis pioneered the use of mathematical models in music such as applications of set theory, stochastic processes and game theory and was also an important influence on the development of electronic music. He integrated music with architecture, designing music for pre-existing spaces, and designing spaces to be integrated with specific music compositions and performances.
Among his most important works are Metastaseis (1953–4) for orchestra, which introduced independent parts for every musician of the orchestra; percussion works such as Psappha (1975) and Pléïades (1979); compositions that introduced spatialization by dispersing musicians among the audience, such as Terretektorh (1966); electronic works created using Xenakis's UPIC system; and the massive multimedia performances Xenakis called polytopes. Among the numerous theoretical writings he authored, the book Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (1971) is regarded as one of his most important. As an architect, Xenakis is primarily known for his early work under Le Corbusier: the Sainte Marie de La Tourette, on which the two architects collaborated, and the Philips Pavilion at Expo 58, which Xenakis designed alone.

[from Wikipedia]


To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic website and search for 'completecommunion'.
To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com







Sunday, June 10, 2012

Podcast Episode 6 - The Voice of the Soul (for Yusef Lateef)


Yusef Lateef, Roots Run Deep II from “Roots Run Deep” (2012) [6.13]
* Recitation of verses from the Qu’ran [2.26]
Yusef Lateef, Love and Humor from “The Sound Of Yusef” (1957) [6.12]
* Dhikr (Remembrance) [2.18]
Yusef Lateef, 1984 from “1984” (1965) [8.16]
* Dunya Yunis, Abul Zeluf [3.03]
John Coltrane, Mars from “Interstellar Space” (1974) [10.46]
* Baba Hakim, Tanbur Solo [4.44]
Yusef Lateef, Three Faces of Balal from “Eastern Sound” (1920) [2.23]
* Gunbri (folk song) [2.53]
Sun Ra, Voice of Space from “Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy” (1963) [7.43]
* Tahlil [6.19]
Yusef Lateef, Nubian Lady from “The Gentle Giant” (1972) [6.33]
* Wasinxzama Khan Naseri and Nazir Ahmad, Kavali [4.37]
Yusef Lateef, First Gymnopedie from “Psychicemotus” (1965) [3.30]
* Hussein Ali Zodeh, Tar solo [4.55]
Yusef Lateef, Interior Monologue from “Roots Run Deep” (2012) [3.38]

Tracks marked with * are from the album “Music in The World Of Islam, Vol. 1: Human Voice, Lutes” (Topic Records, 1994)

Yusef Lateef (born William Emanuel Huddleston; October 9, 1920) is an American Grammy Award-winning jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator and a spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community after his conversion to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in 1950.
Although Lateef's main instruments are the tenor saxophone and flute, he also plays oboe and bassoon, both rare in jazz, and also uses a number of world music instruments, notably the bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, arghul, sarewa, and koto. He is known for his innovative blending of jazz with "Eastern" music.

Lateef's sound has been claimed to have been a major influence on the saxophonist John Coltrane, whose later period free jazz recordings contain similarly 'Eastern' traits. For a time (1963–66) Lateef was signed to Coltrane's label, Impulse. He had a regular working group during this period, with trumpeter Richard Williams and Mike Nock on piano. They enjoyed a residency at Pep's Lounge during June 1964; an evening of which was issued across several albums.

In 1960, Lateef again returned to school, studying flute at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. He received a Bachelor's Degree in Music in 1969 and a Master's Degree in Music Education in 1970. Starting in 1971, he taught courses in autophysiopsychic music at the Manhattan School of Music, and he became an associate professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in 1972. In 1975, Lateef completed his dissertation on Western and Islamic education and earned a Ed.D. in Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

[from wikipedia]


To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic website and search for 'completecommunion'.
To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Podcast Episode 5 - Little Red Riding (Child)hood Hit The Road [*feat. François Cambuzat]


L’Enfance Rouge & Eugene Robinson: Bleed a Little (2012) [6.20]
*Costas Dousas The Trawler From “Café Rembetika – The Birth of the Greek Blues” (2000) [4.04]
*Bästard: 200 Miles From Hanoi from “Radiant, Discharged, Crossed Off” (1996) [4.25]
*Keiji Haino: Untitled from “Tenshi No Gijnka” (1995) [4.23]
*Miguel Angel Costas: Mi llanto (Solea) from “Bordòn De Trapo” (2006) [3.15] -
*Einstürzende Neubauten: Sehnsucht (Zitternd) from the movie “1/2 Mensch” (1985) [2.55]
*Olivier Messiaen: Meditations sur le mistère de la Sainte Trinité (1969) [8.28]
*Derek Bailey: Stella By Starlight from “Ballads” (2002) [7.22]
L’Enfance Rouge: Petite Mort from “Trapani - Halq Al Waady” (2008) [8.46]
Iannis Xenakis, Nomos Alpha (1965) Pierre Strauch cello [12.40]
Dälek: Eyes to Form Shadows from “Absence” (2004) [6.30]
Ennio Morricone: Astrazione con Ritmo from “Il Serpente” (1973) soundtrack [4.19] 
Living Colour: Wall from “Stain” (1993) [5.24]

The music in this episode marked with (*) is kindly provided by François Régis Cambuzat of L’Enfance Rouge, who gave me the records from which I selected the tracks. While waiting for his new album with L’Enfance Rouge and Lofti Buchnak, I hope to invite more artists as guest podcasters in the near future. I took his photos here during a concert near Milan (Italy) last summer.

François Régis Cambuzat biography from womex.com: French, born in Viet Nam, from pieds-noirs parents. Since birth, François R. Cambuzat has never lived more than four years in the same place. Saïgon, Paris, London, New York, Berlin, Amsterdam, Tunis, etc.
His touring life has led him from Vilna to Cadiz, as from Tbilisi to Athens and further. He has been invited to many great festivals such as Documenta in Kassel, and so, geographically as well as artistically, François R. Cambuzat has explored many music genres from punk to contemporary classical music, from jazz to maghreb's music, as his discography testifies.
He has created major projects as famous as the Kim Squad, Il Gran Teatro Amaro and L'Enfance Rouge.
François' repertoire is to be seen literally as a secret garden. A part of his favourite melodies. Arie and chants from early Birthday Party to Claude Debussy, songs from peculiar areas & quarters of Tunis until the '900 Paris of Jacques Ibert or the Spain of Buenaventura Durutti and Garcia Lorca, maybe his most intimate soul, maybe his darkest soul and paradoxally his more sunny side.

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic website and search for 'completecommunion'.
To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Podcast Episode 4 - East Meets West. Pt. 2: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha


Buckethead: First Master/Splinter Pool from “Cobra Strike II – Y, Y+B, X+Y <hold>” (2000) [6.56]
Giacinto Scelsi: Uaxuctum: The Legend Of The Mayan City Which They Themselves Destroyed For Religious Reasons - 1st Movement for large orchestra, choir and Martenot waves (1969) [6.33]
Zulie Banda from “Voices of Haiti recorded by Maya Deren” (1953) [3.09]
Masahiko Satoh and the Soulbreakers: Amalgamation Pt. 2 from “Amalgamation (Kokotsu No Showa Genroku)” (1971) [21.18]
Triocton: Hizuru from “Triocton” (1998) [3.46]
Kecak (Chanting) from “Music for the Gods – The Fahnestock South Sea Expedition: Indonesia” (1941) [5.27]
Makoto Kawabata: excerpt from “Subjection of Drone” (2008) [21.15]
John Zorn: Chronology from “Spy Vs Spy – The Music of Ornette Coleman” (1989) [1.04]

This podcast is dedicated to Maya Deren


Brian Patrick Carroll (born May 13, 1969), better known by his stage name Buckethead, is a guitarist and multi instrumentalist who has worked within several genres of music, spanning such diverse areas as progressive metal, funk, blues, jazz, bluegrass, ambient, and avant-garde music. Best known for his electric guitar playing, he has been voted number 8 on a list in GuitarOne magazine of the "Top 10 Greatest Guitar Shredders of All Time" as well as being included in Guitar World's lists of the "25 all-time weirdest guitarists" and is also known for being in the "50 fastest guitarists of all time list". Buckethead performs primarily as a solo artist. He has collaborated extensively with a wide variety of high profile artists such as Bill Laswell, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Iggy Pop, Les Claypool, Serj Tankian, Bill Moseley, Mike Patton, Viggo Mortensen, That 1 Guy, and was a member of Guns N' Roses from 2000 to 2004. Buckethead has also written and performed music for major motion pictures, including: Saw II, Ghosts of Mars, Beverly Hills Ninja, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Last Action Hero, and contributed lead guitar to the track "Firebird" featured on the Power Rangers Movie Soundtrack. (from Wikipedia)

Giacinto Scelsi, Count of Ayala Valva (La Spezia, 8 January 1905 – Rome, 9 August 1988), was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French. He is best known for writing music based around only one pitch, altered in all manners through microtonal oscillations, harmonic allusions, and changes in timbre and dynamics, as paradigmatically exemplified in his revolutionary Quattro Pezzi su una nota sola ["Four Pieces on a single note"] (1959). His musical output, which encompassed all Western classical genres except scenic music, remained largely undiscovered even within contemporary musical circles during most of his life. A series of concerts in the mid to late 1980s finally premièred many of his pieces to great acclaim, notably his orchestral masterpieces in October 1987 in Cologne, about a quarter of a century after those works had been composed and less than a year before the composer's death. Scelsi was able to attend the premières and personally supervised the rehearsals. Dutch musicologist Henk de Velde, alluding to Adorno speaking of Alban Berg, called Scelsi "the Master of the yet smaller transition," to which Harry Halbreich added that "in fact, his music is only transition."

In the early 1940s, Katherine Dunham engaged the future experimental film-maker Maya Deren to act as her personal assistant. Deren toured with the Katherine Dunham Dance Company doing secretarial work for Dunham as the latter wrote up the findings from the anthropological fieldwork she had done in the mid 1930s in Haiti and other parts of the Caribbean. Dunham, a mixed race African American born in Chicago, sought to educate black and white Americans through writing about and choreographing with the rich dance culture which had developed as a consequence of the African diaspora. Deren, born in Kiev into a Jewish family who migrated to the United States in 1922, discovered ritual through her contact with Dunham and subsequently used it as a key device in her pioneering experimental film work. In a 1946 pamphlet Deren wrote about the importance of ritual in her films, two of which had been made with dancers who had been members of Dunham’s company; the following year she made her first visit to Haiti to study and film vaudun (voodoo) rituals that had been the subject of Miss Dunham’s research a decade earlier. (from “Catherine Durham and Maya Deren on ritual, modernity, and the African Diaspora” by Ramsay Burt professor of Dance History at Department of Performance and Digital Art, De Montfort University, Leichester)

Born in Tokyo in 1941, graduated from Keio University, Masahiko Satoh studied music composition and arrangement at Berklee School of Music from 1966 to 1968. In his fully fledged professional life after returning to Japan, he received the “Japan Jazz Award” by Swing Journal Magazine with his first album “Palladium” in 1969 where he led the making of the album. Later he was also awarded twice with the Award of Excellency at the National Art Festival of Japan with his original masterpieces of “Four Jazz Compositions” (1970) and “Yamataifu” (1972). He released numerous albums he led the making of such as the U.S. release “Amorphism”, recorded in trio with Steve Gadd and Eddie Gomez, and “Randooga”, born from the occasion of “Select Live Under The Sky ‘90” (“Japan Jazz Award” by Swing Journal Magazine) which was released in France. His jazz festival appearance includes Berlin, Donau Eschingen, Moers, Montreux, and East Meets West In New York, and the concert tours in Africa, Australia, Russia, and Latin America. As music composer and arranger he participated in recordings of many well-known musicians such as Nancy Wilson, Art Farmer, Helen Merrill, Nakagawa Masami, Itoh Kimiko, and Miyamoto Fumiaki. He composed and produced two releases of a new direction “Ranmon for orchestra and three improvisers” (1987) and “Concerto for the WAVE III and orchestra” (1988) and pavilion pieces as “World Exposition - Local Governance Memorial Hall” (1970) and “Flower and Green Exposition - JT Memorial Hall” (1990). He also works on TV programs, movies, and CM in Japan. He composed and arranged the pieces combined with the traditional buddhist monk music for “BUDDHIST MUSIC with 1000 Syomyo Voices” at Budokan in Tokyo in 1993. This work attracted attentions from different disciplines. He created his own production label BAJ Records in 1997 and his activities continually grow and diversify. (Biography from SuperFM.com)

Maurizio Suppo (Turin, Italy, Dec. 26, 1970) started his musical journey in 1987 with a thrash metal band, changing their music toward a crossover style in 1989, as Producers of Absurdities. The band split up in 1991, then he joined another musical project called Human Contrast in 1992, doing crossover funk with experimental touch. After this project end, in 1997, Maurizio Suppo did mainly improvisation units with people like Hoppy Kamiyama, Harpy, Kirirola (ex Girl), Xabier Iriondo, Chris Iemulo, Stefano Giust, Ivan Pilat, Alessandro Cartolari, Daniele Brusaschetto, Luca  Torasso (Sandblasting), Eriko Suzuki, Dominik Gawara, and many others. After being featured in compilations for Snowdonia label and an album with Hoppy Kamiyama called Urabami still unpublished, Maurizio Suppo has two projects in solo with collaborators: Triocton (avantgarde metal) and The Nuns Of Telekinesis (experimental dark ambient). Triocton is a solo project done with guitar, drum loops, samples and guitar synthesizer, it is deeply inspired by the graphic works of Jack Kirby and the Lovecraft's novels, with guests Forbes Graham (ex Kayo Dot) and Chuck Stern (ex Time Of Orchids). It is a mixture of progressive influences, extreme metal, avantgarde and expecially improvisation. All tracks have a theme and then there are solos totally improvised.

Music for the Gods – The Fahnestock South Sea Expedition: Indonesia. The second release in Mickey Hart's Endangered Music Project captures the shimmering music of Indonesia as it existed in 1941, when the Fahnestock brothers set sail to record the indigenous musics of Bali, Java, Madura and Arjasa with state-of-the-art Presto disc-cutters. Music accompanies all aspects of Indonesian life -- the work of farmers, the play of children, royal ceremony, theaters, or rituals of birth and death. The most important form is the gamelan, ensembles dominated by magnificent bronze gongs and metallophones ( bronze-keyed xylophones). The gamelan is characterized by what might be called a sacred geometry -- everything from the number of beats to the arrangement and design of the instruments adheres to a precise symmetry and cosmology, reflective of a worldview rooted in Hindu Buddhism. In contrast to the driving energy of the large gamelan ensembles are simple and gentle performances featuring haunting voices, bamboo flutes and reed instruments, and one featuring nothing more than an Indonesian Jew's harp played by a young girl. And there is the legendary kecak, or Monkey Dance, the complex counterpoint of interlocking chants by a two-hundred man chorus, building to a kind of ecstatic, otherworldly frenzy. These recordings provide a window on a world radically different from our own -- one which has been changed almost beyond recognition in the intervening years.

"Music, for me, is neither something that I create, nor a form of self-expression. All kinds of sounds exist everywhere around us, and my performances solely consist of picking up these sounds, like a radio tuner, and playing them so that people can hear them. However, maybe because my reception is somewhat off, I am unable to perfectly reproduce these sounds. That is why I spend my days rehearsing. Where do these sounds come from? Who is sending them out? That is not something for me to know, and neither is there any way that I could find out. I simply believe that they come from the 'cosmos'. (Maybe other people would call God the source). Since I was a small child I have been prone to hearing ringing sounds in my ears and other sound phantasms. At the time, I believed that these were messages aimed directly at me from a UFO, and so I would gaze up at the sky. But once I started playing music myself, I came to feel that these noises were a kind of pure sound. And I promised myself that one day I would be able to play those sounds myself. It is only recently that I have begun to feel that I have been able to come close to reproducing these sounds in my solo guitar work, and in my INUI project. However, in June of 1999, I finally discovered my own 'cosmos' and I experienced an instant of total union with it!! That 'cosmos' is still tiny in size - although any cosmos can, by its very nature, be infinitely huge or infinitely small. The energy and vibrations contained within that it far exceeded my imagination in scope and beauty. I can only describe the miraculous instant when my 'cosmos' accepted my consciousness as MAGIC.” (Makoto Kawabata)

John Zorn (born September 2, 1953 in New York City) is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer. He has had experience with a variety of genres including jazz, rock, hardcore punk, classical, extreme metal, klezmer, film, cartoon, popular, and improvised music. Zorn brings these styles to his work, which he refers to with the label avant-garde/experimental. Zorn has stated: "All the various styles are organically connected to one another. I'm an additive person - the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they can't see the connections, but they are there." Zorn has led the punk jazz band Naked City and the klezmer-influenced quartet Masada, composed Masada Songbooks (written concert music for classical ensembles), and has produced music for film and documentary. Zorn established himself within the New York City downtown music movement in the mid 1970s and has since composed and performed with a wide range of musicians working in diverse musical areas. By the early 1990s Zorn was working extensively in Japan, attracted by that culture's openness about borrowing and remixing ingredients from elsewhere, before returning to New York as a permanent base in the mid-1990s. Zorn has undertaken many tours of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, often performing at festivals with varying ensembles to display his diverse output. (from Wikipedia)

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic website and search for 'completecommunion'.
To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Podcast Episode 3 - East Meets West. Pt. 1: Violence, Sex, Politics

Antonin Artaud: Bruitage, from “Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu” (1947) [1.32]
Diamanda Galàs: Panoptikòn from “Diamanda Galàs” (1984) [15.06]
Keiji Haino: excerpt from “I Said This is the Son of Nihilism” (2004) [18.39]
Terre Thaemliz Yer Ass is Grass from “Soil” (1995) [8.22]
Vampillia feat. Attila Csihar: One (previously unreleased, 2012) [8.58]
Yosuke Yamashita Trio: Chiasma from “Chiasma” (1976) [7.15]
Carmelo Bene: excerpt from “Bene! Quattro modi diversi di morire in versi. Majakovskij-Blok-Esenin-Pasternak”, music by Vittorio Gelmetti (1974) [6.18]

This episode is dedicated to Koji WakamatsuI also thank Japanese ‘brutal orchestra’ Vampillia for sharing their still unreleased collaboration with singer Attila Csihar.


Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), post surrealist poet, theatre writer, actor. The radio broadcast Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu (‘To have done with the judgement of god’, 1948) is his last work, a radio broadcast thought as the full realization of his ‘Theatre of Cruelty’, a theatre not overtaken by repetition and delivered through action. Friend of André Bréton, fervent admirer of the Dalai Lama, interested in Balinese Gamelan music and South America peyotl rituals, Artaud used voice and noise to amplify the expressivity in order to get beyond the boundaries of language and of the body, anticipating contemporary singing (Demetrio Stratos, Joan La Barbara, Diamanda Galàs), performance art (Chris Burden, Gina Pane, Marina Abramovic) and the use of ethnic percussions in post-serial contemporary and electronic music (Iannis Xenakis, Terre Thaemlitz). “When we speak the word "life," it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach.” (Antonin Artaud)

Born in San Diego, California, in 1955, but of Greek origins, Diamanda Galàs is a singer, pianist, videoartist. Choosing to focus through contemporary experimental music in subjects as AIDS (The Masque of the Red Death, Plague Mass, Vena Cava), forced institutionalization (Insekta), the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocide (Defixiones: Will and Testament), she began her career, while developing her unique vocal style, working on the concept of ‘katharsis’ from ancient Greek tragedy, creating a sound environment with her voice and microphones system. Diamanda Galàs started her career as an improviser, with NY-based musicians David Murray and Butch Morris, then left the world of improvised music after collaborations with ‘downtown’ and European artists as John Zorn, Henry Kaiser, Andrea Centazzo and Peter Kowald. She debuted in 1977 as a contemporary music singer in Vinko Globokar Un Jour Comme un Autre and since 1989 started working also on cycles of songs taken from Western music repertoire - Edith Piaf, Roy Acuff, Ornette Coleman, Johnny Cash, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Her latest works are the movie Schrei 27, in collaboration with Italian videoartist Davide Pepe and focused on political use of torture, and the sound installation Aquarium, where with Vladislav Shabalin she denounces the environmental disasters on the Gulf of Mexico.

Keiji Haino (Chiba, Japan, 1952) started developing his artistic vision through theatre, inspired by Antonin Artaud, shifting to music after hearing The Doors’ When the music’s over. His first band was the psychedelic rock combo Lost Aaraaf, with multi-instrumentalist Magical Power Mako and composer Toru Takemitsu. In 1978 Haino formed the experimental duo Fushitsusha, featuring different musicians to accompany him through records and live performances. Collaborating with avant-garde artists as Derek Bailey, Faust, Peter Brotzmann, Loren Connors, Charles Gayle, Merzbow, John Zorn, Pansonic, Stephen O’Malley and Oren Ambarchi, and expressing himself mostly with guitar and voice but sometimes also with hurdy gurdy, ethnic instruments or live electronics, Haino cites troubadour music, Marlene Dietrich, Iannis Xenakis and Blind Lemon Jefferson as influences. Having tried with the band Aihyio to give his personal, Japanese translation of the blues – ‘covering’ The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and The Ronettes – Keiji Haino performances can be described as cathartic, but also intimate – as the ‘vol. 2’ of 2004 Black Blues, made entirely on voice and acoustic guitar, fully can testify.

Terre Thaemlitz is an award winning multi-media producer, writer, public speaker, educator, audio remixer, DJ and owner of the Comatonse Recordings record label. Her work combines a critical look at identity politics - including gender, sexuality, class, linguistics, ethnicity and race - with an ongoing analysis of the socio-economics of commercial media production. He has released over 15 solo albums, as well as numerous 12-inch singles and video works. Her writings on music and culture have been published internationally in a number of books, academic journals and magazines. As a speaker and educator on issues of non-essentialist Transgenderism and Queerness, Thaemlitz has lectured and participated in panel discussions throughout Europe and Japan. He currently resides in Kawasaki, Japan.

Vampillia is a ‘brutal orchestra’ coming from Osaka, the same city that saw Boredoms arise in the 1990s. Composed by 11 elements – electric guitar, drums, three singers, three violinists, piano and a Dj – the band during its performances alternates classical/acoustic instrumentals with grindcore bursts. In 2011 Vampillia released the albums Rule The World/Deathtiny Land (Code 666) and Alchemic Heart (Important Records), the last featuring Japanese avant noiser Merzbow and American vocal experimentalist Jarboe. Devoted to a music both lyrical, intimate and expressive, they are currently collaborating with Hungarian black metal vocalist Attila Csihar, singer for Mayhem, Tormentor, Current 93, Jarboe and recently Stephen O’Malley’s Sunn O))). Csihar last projects are Void Ov Voices, opening act for Ulver, Lustmord, Ruin and Diamanda Galàs, and Burial Chamber Trio with Greg Anderson of Sunn O))) and avant guitarist Oren Ambarchi. The piece featured on the podcast, and titled One, was sent to me last February when I was still in London, and is released here for the first time publicly through a new mix. The album, one of the five Vampillia is going to release this year, will be called Some Nightmares Take You Aurora Rainbow Darkness.

Yosuke Yamashita (Tokyo, 1926) is a Japanese pianist, composer, essayist, and writer. Praised by critics for his unique piano style, and a pioneer in Japanese free jazz and avant-garde music, in 1969 he formed Yosuke Yamashita Trio, whose music is featured in the final scenes of Koji Wakamatsu’s masterpiece The Ecstasy of the Angels (1972), dedicated to Japanese terrorism, struggle for revolution, power, and political repression. Also a soundtrack composer as for Atsushi Yamatoya’s Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wasteland (1967) and Shoei Imamura’s Dr. Akagi - awarded in 1999 Mainichi Film Concours as ‘Best Film Score’,  in the 1980’s with bassist Cecil Mc Bee and drummer Pheeroan AkLaaff formed the New York Trio, often hosting saxophonist Joe Lovano.  While also famous for a performance in which he played a burning piano dressed with an asbestos suit, Yosuke Yamashita has been a visiting professor of music at Senzoku Gakuen College of Music, Nagoya University of Arts, and Kunitachi College of Music.

Carmelo Bene (1937-2002) was an Italian actor, writer, movie director. He debuted in 1959 with a Caligola that was very appreciated by Albert Camus himself. Close friend and also a collaborator of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and deep connoisseur of the work of Pierre Klossowski, an intellectual at the border of official French culture but a pupil of Rainer Maria Rilke and of André Gide, Carmelo Bene was influenced by Nietzsche and structuralism, by the paintings of Francis Bacon and by James Joyce's Ulysses; in 1960 - and again until the 5th edition in 1980 - he took the poems of Vladimir Majakovskij, the Russian revolutionary poet, as the starting point to his studies on voice, on voiding words of the dialectics between signifying/signifier, and on using the voice itself as a full orchestra. Helped for the music initially by post-serialist composer Sylvano Bussotti, Bene's quest for a theatre that goes beyond the flattening of the voice as mere extention of the written language in 'Majakovskij' passes through the stretching of the dynamics and possibilities of the voice, emphasizing gestures and phonetic elements.

To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic website and search for 'completecommunion'.
To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com