XX04: Romeo Castellucci/Scott Gibbons - IL TERZO REICH - excerpt side A by Xing

Romeo Castellucci/Scott Gibbons - IL TERZO REICH
LP on Xing (XONG collection XX04) out September 2022, order at www.soundohm.com/product/il-terzo-reich-lp and at https://www.lespressesdureel.com/EN/ouvrage.php?id=11782&menu=2
Collector's edition available at https://www.soundohm.com/product/il-terzo-reich-art-editio-1 and at https://shop.flash---art.it/products/romeo-castellucci-scott-gibbons

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Xing presents the artist record IL TERZO REICH by Romeo Castellucci and Scott Gibbons, fourth release in the XONG series. The white vinyl LP is a numbered edition of 400 copies, accompanied by an insert that collects on a long strip of black paper an extract from the flow of words screened in the homonymous stage work. The collector's edition consist of 25 copies, each accompanied by an original artwork by Romeo Castellucci.

IL TERZO REICH is the image and sound of an inculcated communication. The nouns of the Italian language flash on a black screen, about fourteen thousand words. Here, a language-machine devours entire spheres of reality, as the beats, like the nouns, appear the same in their mechanical seriality, as if they were the building blocks of a knowledge that leaves no way to escape. Unrelenting, each opening occupied: a treatment that attacks our mnestic capacity, unable to retain a word that appears in a flash of microseconds. It is a matter of compressing the gaze and the listening arriving to the critical point where a fusion occurs, of indulgence just before our perception loses its grip. This work by Romeo Castellucci and Scott Gibbons is an unstoppable flow that overwhelms everything, where the totalitarian transparency of language lets the physicality of sound emerge in all its apodictic intensity. This release presents the musical facet of a multi-media work in which all the named objects are presented as a flash of text and burst of sound. All of the sounds used were taken from transmissions by Voyager 1 sent from outside our solar system as it passes through interstellar space. The obdurate tic which composes the backbone of the music, as well as the interferences and sonic elaborations, all come from the absolute horizon of our species; from the very limit of our reach. We are left only with the sense of overwhelming density and resoluteness. Within a few years, Voyager 1 will lose the last of its remaining power and cease transmissions. My intent was that the material should be experienced physically; the new arrangement and remix for vinyl retain this approach. Please play back loudly. (Scott Gibbons)

Xong is the name of the new collection produced by Xing, a vinyl-only record label of works by both Italian and international personalities linked to the variegated worlds of live performativity. The collection explores a geography of artists who present this sonic field as a platform to expand their staged worlds. "The space of the record" is given focus and amplifies their poetics as both a sonic and physical phenomenon. Xong is a unique project that draws out divergent understandings of the performative and live arts, beyond genre and intersecting between different practices. Xong collects a series of original creations that constitute an expanded program. Each physical record is a numbered edition on white vinyl hosting the solidification of the gesture. A wave upon wave, a series of "Music-Non-Music" to actualize both the artists and listeners imagination.

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Concept and direction by Romeo Castellucci. Sounds by Scott Gibbons, assembled from recordings of interstellar space provided courtesy of NASA/JPL/University of Iowa. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Photo by Romeo Castellucci. Artwork by Xing. Printed by RAND Muzik Leipzig.