Airchamber3: Peripheral (Frattonove)

Airchamber3 consists of Andrea Ferraris (guitar, bass, laptop, effects, drums), Luca Serrapiglio (alto, tenor & baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, wind controller and synths, theremin, MaTiLda, effects, drums), and Andrea Serrapiglio (cello, laptop, casio sk-1, iPad, drums, vocals). For their second album, the trio is joined at various times by Vincenzo Vassi, Dominic Cramp, Barbara DeDominicis and Luminance Ratio to flesh out their ideas. Recorded over four years, these twelve tracks are built on the group’s core improvisational spirit with sprawling, expansive, and genre-defying gestures, techniques, and sounds. The micro chatter that kicks off “Recollecting Pieces of Treasured Memories” reminds me of Pink Floyd’s “Several Species of Small Furry Animals” before a low, repitched voice starts to bellow over it; the combination of skittering creatures, shifty strings, and deep lead is interesting but not one of my personal favorites. Some of the group’s more wandering moments feel the most inspired, like the ghostly float of “A Body Is a Map of Bruises” (greatly accentuated by Barbara DeDominicis’s voice) or the unusual percolating of “Dopamine Yuppie Dub.” Despite the restless sprawl of most of Peripheral, it ends on a meditative note with the two part “In the Corner of my Eye / Peripheral Vision” (and then followed with some silence and a delicate guitar ditty as a postscript). The overall aesthetic recalls the spirit of seminal New York improv artists like Glenn Branca, filtered through a slightly skewed and drowsy sensibility. There are tinges of rock and jazz alongside a heaping helping of “other” that make Airchamber3 somewhat difficult to describe and to categorize. Here’s hoping that slipperiness continues to guide them as they channel the strange sounds that reside in the outskirts of convention. The following video is for “Tunnel Vision,” the third track on Peripheral (unsure why Serrapiglio labeled it “911” on YouTube…):

Buy it: Frattonove