Carlo Mezzanotte - Binary Currents (2021)

This record contains electronic music pieces written over several decades. They were composed for different occasions and using a variety of synthesis techniques.

"Spiral Gaze", "L'Etoile de Mer", "Il Ritorno alla Ragione" "Et Toi et Moi" and "Sea of Glass" are drawn from a concert/performance of live electronic music and visuals, called "Il Ritorno alla Ragione", a semi-improvised soundtrack to the surrealistic short films created by Man Ray during the 1920s. It was premiered in 1996 for the music season of Teatro Vascello in Rome, and repeated on multiple occasions in subsequent years. In 2009, a new version was commissioned by the “Lugocontemporanea Summer Festival”, and later performed in other venues.

"Rewind" for saxophone quartet and electronics was commissioned by the Ialsax Quartet, leaded by the excellent Gianni Oddi, and premiered by the same ensemble at the World Saxophone Congress in Montreal, Canada in July 2000. It was performed again at several music Festivals around the world.

"Beside Still Waters" is a short piece dedicated to the memory of teacher, Gino Marinuzzi jr. Despite being officially a composition teacher, he was also a pioneer of electronic music, and a multifaced, all-round musical mind.

The woodwind sound heard in the second part is a physical model of a shakuhachi (Japanese wooden flute), played with a breath controller. The title is taken by a short story by Robert Sheckley.

"A Study in Yellow" has been realized as a sort of challenge: composing a short piece using only one instrument. The artist chose the Waldorf Q, a great German digital synthesizer with plenty of choices for modulation and sound shaping. The piece was built on five stereo tracks, using no other sound source than the Waldorf. The Q has a bright yellow front panel, not very common among electronic instruments, so of course that's what inspired the title.