In the early 1940s, with the advent of the audiocassette, French musicologist and composer Pierre Schaeffer began cutting and reassembling short sections of recorded tape to compose new music. This is the first example of sampling, in which pre-existing musical materials, voices and environmental recordings are contextualised in a new work. In a different context and historical period, in the Bronx of DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flesh, drum solos from the funk repertoire of the 1960s and 1970s are sampled and rearranged, then accompanied by the rhyming oratory of rappers. These are the roots of hip hop music, which, from sample to sample, will reach the more than 300 samples of Paul’s Boutique by the Beastie Boys and J-Dilla’s unparalleled Donuts.
In the same way as literary pastiche, hip hop narrative is based on intertextuality, the fragment, the use of already shared materials and is articulated in the form of a constellation; thus Angela Davis’s famous speech “The Prison Industrial Complex” is mixed with the soul of Meshell Ndegeocello, Valerie Solanas’s declamation of the SCUM Manifesto overlaps with the electronic beats of Matmos, Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel Prize lecture concludes the denunciation song “No Fly List” by Swet Shop Boys. The music review of the 9th edition of the festival focuses on these practices of appropriation, through a programme of live performances and listening sessions. Davide Francalanci
Guests on the programme
➤ Caterina Gobbi. LIPS (Lost in Plain Sight) | Sound Activation
The re-discussion of the human/nature boundary, through the relationships between non-human living beings and social structures, is the starting point of Caterina Gobbi’s sound performance and work. A layering of field recordings, theoretical references, samples and new harmonies, accompanying the audience in a non-linear narrative, between “natural/non-natural”, “alive/not alive”, “human/non-human”.
➤ Bob Corsi. Song of the Unplayed | Vinyl Dj Set
Take Your Time, Cleanse Your Heart – Nayyirah Waheed
On 25 October 2019 in the streets of Santiago, thousands of protesters call for change to the notes of El derecho de vivir en paz by Victor Jara, an artist and political activist tortured and killed by Pinochet’s soldiers. Bob Corsi’s sound journey begins here, through the streets of mobilisation and dissent: Honduras, Venezuela, Chile, Haiti, Algeria, Hong Kong, Egypt, Somalia, Brazil, Iran, Turkey, Morocco. In every culture, era or movement, the power of the voice has preceded and encouraged the long marches of the pueblo unido. African to Latin American rhythms, carioca funk, oriental melodies, Jamaican dub, Brazilian samba, Ethiopian jazz. “Popular music” – for artist Susan Hiller – “is a counterpoint to the rhythms of contemporary life, an atmospheric condition of public space, ubiquitous, in cafes, shops, discos and buses, from the radio, the internet and every listening device. Songs can make people talk and think. They remind me that popular music has been and remains a dangerous art…”
Bob Corsi
DJ, musical archaeologist, record collector and music consultant for film and TV, but above all a lifelong agitator of Rome’s dance floors. He is resident DJ for club nights such as Magnetica, Go Bang and Rootsvibes.
➤ Radio Raheem Sound System| Dj set
Radio Raheem
Radio Raheem, a physical space in a symbolic place in the city of Milan, an aggregator of people, an independent web radio, a container and creator of culture. The Raheem platform makes quality, credibility and variety of content its main strengths. Since its foundation in 2017, Radio Raheem engages its community on a daily basis through a physical and digital ecosystem, articulated between the booth in Via Corsico 3, the proprietary platform radioraheem.it and its social channels.
➤ HLMNS RA | Live set
HLMNS RA
Beatmaker, dinosaur hunter and weed collector. Put some powder in a big bowl, add some Duke Ellington and fire up SP404. Raimondo HLMNSRA is an Italian beatmaker/producer based in London. From the sunny vibes of Agrigento to the darkness of London, Ra has rocked the world wide web, quickly gaining esteem and notoriety that has earned him entry into the playlist of top global blogs. Beats, reflips, bootlegs, following the main philosophy of rough drafts, a vintage hip-hop taste mixed with a huge passion for technology and software, glitches, Sonic the Hedgehog soundtracks and funky breaks, melodies as feelings, 8-bit storytelling, uncategorised love.
➤ SUNDAY LIVE SESSION | Hip hop & Urban music contest
On the last day of the Festival, VSA offers a contest to young musicians from the Liceo Volta, who will be able to perform and present their project in a three-hour afternoon session.
➤ Palazzi D’Oriente | Atto audio/video
Palazzi D’Oriente
Luca is Palazzi D’Oriente: producer, composer and DJ among the founding members of 72-HOUR POST FIGHT and 2004 Sgrang. The sound of his productions, unbound by genre classifications, refers to a personal research in downtempo drawing from dubstep and post-rock culture.
He was born near Lake Maggiore and grew up in the province of Varese, where he met and got to know Alessandro Vanetti (Massimo Pericolo) and most of the members of 2004 Sgrang. Among them Carlo Luciano Porrini (Fight Pausa), who introduced him to the musical environment. After working on various productions, he releases in early 2018 his first ep as Palazzi D’Oriente: ‘morgengabe’. The album is distributed as a self-release through a vacuum pack containing a usb stick, a single-copy photographic print and screen-printed posters; this is followed by a series of audio/video performances and publication with La Tempesta in digital format. In 2018, together with Fight Pausa and the two instrumentalists Andrea Dissimile and Adalberto Valsecchi, he launched “72-HOUR POST FIGHT” (La Tempesta), a collaborative project with fluid sounds, in which electronics, jazz, sharp guitars and hip-hop-cut drum breaks coexist. 2019 also sees the re-release of the first collaboration with Massimo Pericolo: Sabbie d’oro.
Video Sound Art Festival
IX edition
28 November- 1 December 2019
Venue:
Liceo Volta, Milano
With the contribution of:
Comune di Milano
Regione Lombardia
Consolato Generale della Germania
With the patronage of:
Fondazione Ellenica di Cultura Italiana