Freefall: Memories and Commentary on My Work with Fausto Romitelli
The author, a long-time collaborator of Fausto Romitelli as musical director of the Ictus Ensemble, gathers his memories to paint a picture of an eccentric and uneasy artist who struggled against his era and was eager to derail it. The use of rock music in Romitelli’s works is seen as the intrusion of a “foreign agent,” deeply distorting the acoustic landscape. The sonic landscape, which his generation decried, is hence inclined to subversion: glimmering imagery undermines solidity, radiant metamorphosis gives way to freefall. The production of the two recordings, dedicated by Ictus to Romitelli, is minutely detailed, marking the transgressive, jarring moment when contemporary music entered the “post-Sgt.-Pepper” era under the twin standards of Romitellian unnaturalism and electric guitar as a bridge to electronic music.