Tempo liquido 1 (1979)

Album title: tempo liquido
Title: Tempo liquido 1 (Track 01)
Publisher: DIVerso/Cramps Records, Milan
Date: 1979
Medium: record 30 cm

Tempo Liquido was released in 1979 as an LP on vinyl and as a CD via the sublabel DIVerso of Cramps Records. The album consists of two tracks, the first of which can be heard here.

Fabrizio Plessi and Christina Kubisch developed an intense artistic collaboration between 1973 and 1979. Both worked on abolishing the separation of image and sound. Using video cameras and monitors, they projected the details of their performances live so that the audience could follow the detailed actions of the two musicians. Among other things, Kubisch unusually played the flute while aiming a water jet at a steel drum. Fascinated by non-European instruments, she also used a steel drum in Tempo liquido. The Shō, a Japanese instrument made of bamboo, as well as a carillon and so-called fingerpicks, were also used.

The piece is a mixture of manually generated noises and electroacoustic sounds. Kubisch and Plessi then electronically altered the recordings made during their performances and put them together in new arrangements. In the course of the piece Tempo liquido 1, the sounds of a synthesiser are joined by those of the carillon, the Shō and the steel drum. The dominant sound, which begins after two and a half minutes, becomes louder and appears more frequently as the piece progresses. At the same time, the other sounds fade away until they are gradually no longer heard. The predominant sound takes over and is the only audible one at the end. Thus the first piece ends as the second begins. There, the predominant sound seems to move away again until it falls completely silent. The
other tones take over again, and the second piece ends as the first begins.

CM, PS