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CUNI, AMELIA — Melopea
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https://cunidurand.bandcamp.com/album/melopea
Black Truffle is pleased to announce Melopea, presenting two new pieces highlighting the incredible voice of Amelia Cuni (1958-2024), the great Italian singer, based in Berlin in later life, whose mastery of the classical Indian dhrupad developed in parallel with a commitment to contemporary experimental approaches. After two stunning archival releases documenting traditional dhrupad performances in India in the 1990s (BT079 and BT092), the two side-long pieces here embody the freedom with which Cuni explored new contexts and settings for her singing.
Both make use of a long recording of Cuni singing the pentatonic Raag Bhoop (or Bhopali) made in 2012 by her partner Werner Durand in Berlin. Melopea began from Cuni and Durands superimposition of this recording with violinist Silvia Tarozzi and cellist Deborah Walkers performance of liane Radigues Occam River II. Inspired by the beauty of this chance encounter (and other experiments with non-synchronous collaboration during the pandemic years), Tarozzi and Walker recorded independently, without hearing Cunis voice but having her present in memory. Tarozzi and Walkers bowed strings places Cunis magisterial performance in a new context, emphasising, as Radigue commented upon hearing the initial layering of her piece with Cunis voice, a shared searching toward the partials, overtones, these natural constituents of acoustical sounds in their richness. Beginning with whispered bowed harmonics, the violin and cello swap the stability of dhrupads traditional tanpura drone for a slowly evolving, uneasy web of harmonic interactions recalling some of Harley Gabers work, sometimes sitting on dissonances for long periods or allowing changing interference patterns to come to the fore. Primarily focusing on her lower register, Cunis performance demonstrates her mastery of microtonal pitch subtleties, elegant sweeping glissandi and meditatively unhurried pacing.
The continuation of the same recording by Cuni forms the foundation of Bhoop-Murchana, with Anthea Caddy on cello and Werner Durand on soprano saxophone. In contrast to the randomised layering of the first piece, here Durand and Caddy have carefully selected pitches based on the raag Cuni sings, using the Murchana form, which uses the constituent notes of the raag as tonics of new raags, retaining the same interval structure. Both players who have developed tones of striking depth and harmonic purity on their instruments, Caddy and Durands patient long tones are simultaneously rigorously grounded in the physical properties of sound and possessed of an immaterial, floating quality. Combined with Cunis voice and, near the pieces end, her contributions on hammered and plucked tanpura, the effect borders on miraculous. To surrender to this music is like slipping into an onsen pool, feeling the instantaneous release of every tension. Accompanied by liner notes from Durand, Tarozzi and Walker, Melopea is both a moving tribute to the profound art of Amelia Cuni and, for the uninitiated, a perfect introduction to it.
Black Truffle is pleased to announce Melopea, presenting two new pieces highlighting the incredible voice of Amelia Cuni (1958-2024), the great Italian singer, based in Berlin in later life, whose mastery of the classical Indian dhrupad developed in parallel with a commitment to contemporary experimental approaches. After two stunning archival releases documenting traditional dhrupad performances in India in the 1990s (BT079 and BT092), the two side-long pieces here embody the freedom with which Cuni explored new contexts and settings for her singing.
Both make use of a long recording of Cuni singing the pentatonic Raag Bhoop (or Bhopali) made in 2012 by her partner Werner Durand in Berlin. Melopea began from Cuni and Durands superimposition of this recording with violinist Silvia Tarozzi and cellist Deborah Walkers performance of liane Radigues Occam River II. Inspired by the beauty of this chance encounter (and other experiments with non-synchronous collaboration during the pandemic years), Tarozzi and Walker recorded independently, without hearing Cunis voice but having her present in memory. Tarozzi and Walkers bowed strings places Cunis magisterial performance in a new context, emphasising, as Radigue commented upon hearing the initial layering of her piece with Cunis voice, a shared searching toward the partials, overtones, these natural constituents of acoustical sounds in their richness. Beginning with whispered bowed harmonics, the violin and cello swap the stability of dhrupads traditional tanpura drone for a slowly evolving, uneasy web of harmonic interactions recalling some of Harley Gabers work, sometimes sitting on dissonances for long periods or allowing changing interference patterns to come to the fore. Primarily focusing on her lower register, Cunis performance demonstrates her mastery of microtonal pitch subtleties, elegant sweeping glissandi and meditatively unhurried pacing.
The continuation of the same recording by Cuni forms the foundation of Bhoop-Murchana, with Anthea Caddy on cello and Werner Durand on soprano saxophone. In contrast to the randomised layering of the first piece, here Durand and Caddy have carefully selected pitches based on the raag Cuni sings, using the Murchana form, which uses the constituent notes of the raag as tonics of new raags, retaining the same interval structure. Both players who have developed tones of striking depth and harmonic purity on their instruments, Caddy and Durands patient long tones are simultaneously rigorously grounded in the physical properties of sound and possessed of an immaterial, floating quality. Combined with Cunis voice and, near the pieces end, her contributions on hammered and plucked tanpura, the effect borders on miraculous. To surrender to this music is like slipping into an onsen pool, feeling the instantaneous release of every tension. Accompanied by liner notes from Durand, Tarozzi and Walker, Melopea is both a moving tribute to the profound art of Amelia Cuni and, for the uninitiated, a perfect introduction to it.