Daniele Bogon: Del Suono e Della Luce
Slowcraft
Many a Slowcraft release soothes with serene soundscapes and soul-calming evocations—which makes the sonic wildfire that is Daniele Bogon's Slowcraft debut all the more ear-catching as a result. Listening to Del Suono e Della Luce (“of sound and of light”), it makes sense that the Italian sound artist's work would have found a regular home in museums as part of contemporary art installations. Working with analog and modular synthesizers, samples, guitar, piano, and hand-made instruments, Bogon processes his sound elements to sculpt rugged, elemental soundscapes that pack a visceral punch.
Del Suono e Della Luce distances itself immediately from others in the Slowcraft catalogue when “Uncomfortable Unknown” enters in an ominous, slow-burning blaze of unsettling swirls, whooshes, and ripples. The sound mass slowly expands to engulfing proportions, its graininess becoming ever more pronounced as the intensity rises. Without pause, the overture leads into “Liminal Form,” Bogon transporting the listener back decades with the bright, prog-associated timbres of analog synthesizers. In keeping with the gesture, the music exudes nostalgia and even longing in its melancholic expression. As the fifty-minute recording advances, it assumes the form of a travelogue whose stopping points highlight different facets of Bogon's artistic sense and sensibility.
With synthesizers emitting siren wails, an industrial-strength drone roars throughout “Kelpies.” Aptly titled, “Under This Heavy Sky” and “Engravings” pulsate with laser-focused intent, Bogon here generating waves of sound masses so powerful and all-consuming they feel capable of obliterating everything in their path. “Altered Sun,” on the other hand, aligns itself more closely to others in the Slowcraft discography in opting for a gentler, hymnal presentation. The smudged, clangorous character of “Breathe in Complexity,” on the other hand, makes it resemble a Basic Channel track exhumed from some decaying ‘90s cassette, though details buried in the background call to mind Tangerine Dream during its earliest days.
As such productions play, the impression forms of Bogon drawing from the legacies of the past to carry the music forward and infuse the tradition with new energy. In progressing through stages of white-heat intensity and relative calm, the track sequencing likewise shows him giving careful attention to the album's arc. At his personal site, Bogon states that, for him, “Sound is an intimate way of ascension, purification, abstraction, cure, healing, and relief.” Certainly many of those qualities are explored by the nine pieces, which alternate between moments that are ethereal and ecstatic and others earthier and rock-solid by comparison.March 2023