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ANDREA SARTORI

Il Tagliacode (title explanation as written by andrea, translated by touane, edited by modyfier)

Sound: The title "Il Tagliacode", refers to a special editing technique of cutting the acoustic samples, emphasizing the harmonic frequencies that are contained in the chords, and accenting the sounds' attack. These harmonics appear just in the sustained parts, that is, in the tail of the sampled sound.

Sentimento: Like sounds, feelings can also be generated in an instant. For example, imagine a spectrum where a particular color dominates at first and then changes with time, moving towards other tones. It gets impressed in the mind with a different sentimental content, a different thought; lucid but also far away from reality.

Il Tagliacode ( the tail-cutter) is an imaginary character who cannot live a sentimental path. Constructed of attacks and releases, he decides to live in a world that is made of only the traces left by emotion. In every one of these tracks, all the melodic and rhythmic elements derive from the tail of the sounds that the Tagliacode decides to maintain.

In this entirely instrumental album, I create a new mode to translate abstract content into music that I call, "emotional settling".

Study of the Arrangements: Since 2005, I've spent my days in Bologna in front of a pc, focusing on timbral research and melodic phrases that differ from classic pop melodies (the kind that are easily found in much of contemporary electronic music).

The first aim is to find melodic solutions that are original but not atonal (or typically noise-glitchy). Using mostly soft synths and virtual drum machines, I craft the embryonic arrangements and textures that will form the world of Il Tagliacode. The cold sounds, typical of digital instruments, do not satisfy me. There is an emotional revoking process that should come out from the initial idea, and the need for acoustic instruments becomes a prioritary issue for me.

The Recording Sessions: During the summer of 2006, Giampiero Stramaccia, an electronic musician with whom I had already started some collaborations, heard some of the proto-versions I was working on and invited me to do some recording sessions in his studio in Foligno (a calm city in Umbria, Italy and a burrow for many talented upcoming Italian Jazz artists). I delightfully accepted and with my external hard disk and some mics moved into the studio for one week (sleeping on a small couch close to the sampler). For seven days I was visited by the sportiest musicians in the Umbrian scene, and while listening to them play, I'd explain the themes I was interested in having them develop. They would instantly improvise great tunes without knowing that they are already "on air" on the sampler. At night, I cleaned up and integrated the material that had been recorded during the day.

The Post-Production: Back in my studio in Bologna, I started to work on the recorded material. I found I was facing big problems in trying to merge the depth of the acoustic samples with the linearity of the sounds (the ones that form the sequences that structure the tracks).

Trying to mix water and oil, I found what I needed were analog fat busters and digital ointments. The purchase of a spring reverb and the discovery of some old plug-ins provided the keys to finally realizing this fusion. A lot of time passed between the initial sketched arrangements and the finished product. I needed a real time recording rather than a rendering because the tracks were being processed by analog effects. Also, my studio is really close to the railroad which provided another challenge because it created interferences into the spring of the reverb (making annoying chops). Not everyone knows that Bologna is one of the biggest railroad ties in Italy, with a train passing by every 3 minutes. So, at every strike, a part of the record is completed.

andrea sartori - process part 047 (il tagliacode) by modyfier