Luca Mauri - Between Love And Hate (2008)

Recorded and mixed from January to April 2008 by Luca Mauri
Mastered in May 2008 by Giuseppe Ielasi, Milan, Italy

Photos by Giulia Mazza
Graphic design by Luca Mauri

Production by Ernesto Rodrigues

Luca Mauri: guitar, ride, snare, crash, editing

Luca Mauri was born in 1977 near Milan, Italy. From the age of sixteen he has played guitar in different band hardcore-punk/noise (Citta Sotterranea, Idioti, MMK…) and approached experimental avant-garde music in the late 90s, with his solo-projects “00” and “looke”.
Luca has also played guitar in “I/O” (2000 – 2010), an improvisation quartet with avant-garde/free-form rock/minimalistic influences, by which he has released two records and has played live with a lot of bands (Liars, William Parker, Giuseppe Ielasi, Zu, Cul de Sac and so on…).
In 2005-2007 he has played bass/guitar/drums in “Two Dead Bodies” duo, devoted to tribal/noise improvisations. Between 2001 and 2006 he has played drums in a post-punk/funk band called “Kokoro Mayikibo”, and recorded a cd co-produced with the Italian label Mila Record.
Today, Luca is playing guitar in the electro-acoustic band “Luminance Ratio”, with Gianmaria Aprile (Ultraviolet Makes Me sick, Fratto9under the sky records), Luca Sigurta (Harshcore) and Andrea Ferraris (Airchamber 3, Ur,Ulna, John Russel, Sil Muir); in the same time he also collaborates with the artist Eleonora Rossi in video/multimedia performance and installation. - luminanceratio.com

Creative Sources is a label known for its versatility and generally uncompromising attitude, its artists given virtually free reign to explore, shapeshift and design what they wish at will. Italian guitarist Luca Mauri is no exception, although judging by the one-man show that is Between Love and Hate, one wishes he might have exercised a lot less caution and a lot more will. Credited with guitar, ride, snare, crash, and editing (and this recording demonstrates that a little editing, a process as vital and necessary as any other, goes a long way), Mauri's sometimes tense environments have a way of slowly insinuating themselves, like a sonic absinthe, deeply into your subconscious. It's improvisation as hypnotization, and for a respectable portion of this recording, acquits itself admirably. Much is prelude, little is release (except on the restrained thrash of "Choke"), and perhaps that was his intention — on face, Mauri wants to present within the boundaries of improv what popular music's icons attempt to convey with words.
Mauri, in fact, seems to want to position himself as an emotionalist within improv circles, a quality few might attribute to a genre so identified with abandon, freedom, nonconformity, and technical opacity. Mastered by fellow guitar processor Giuseppe Ielasi (who is himself fast becoming a ubiquitous facilitator on the scene), Between Love and Hate, shorn of some of its more abrasive moments, might have found a home on labels such as 12k or Last Visible Dog as much as Creative Sources. The opening track, "A Quiet Storm", is a case in point: Mauri's strings, backwards-masked loops, and crushed cymbals achieve an isolationist ambience that one might construe as anti-metal, stripped to its primal skeleton, left to decay in the night. "Decline of a Beautiful Lace" is, dare it be said, practically melodic — Mauri is obviously an adept guitarist, and this lovely little soliloquy, all minor key chords and late afternoon malaise, formally bridges whatever gap exists between the formalities of "pop" and folk-imbued improv. Then Mauri has to go and upset the apple cart completely by making his former "ghost metal" tendencies implicit on "Choke", a sub-industrial sturm und drang contextually unmoored from the disc's center. Redeemed by the spooky sepulchral textures of "All that Remains", Between Love and Hate resolves its ideals in a two-plus minute coda that finds Mauri painting his emotional middles within slowly decaying tinctures of black. - Darren Bergstein, SquidsEar