Bellows - Strand (Vinyl)

Italian electro-acoustic composers Giuseppe Ielasi and Nicola Ratti reconvene their unique Bellows collaborative project for their new album Strand on Shelter Press. Continuously drawing a hypnotic maze with albums on Boomkat Editions (BKEDIT 012LP, 2015), Entr'acte, and Ielasi's cult Senufo label, Bellows offers their first album on Shelter Press with Strand. Clocking right under 40 minutes, Strand is direct and disorienting. With eight tactile but distant untitled tracks, the album convokes a complex sound palette between acousmatic sound and fractal beats. Recorded in Milano at their very own Standard recording studio, Strand marks a shift in Bellows' previous recording process, bringing more music gear on the table: tapes, modular synthesizers, effects, and samples. Captured live over the course of four days of improvised sessions, the album floats between ghostly melodies, musique concrète, and analog electronics. Echoing with the artwork by Amsterdam-based artist Louis Reith, whose collages made of found black-and-white images are disrupted by bold geometric constructions, the album is disorienting and fascinating, seated right in between the challenging world of electro-acoustic and a more welcoming beat-oriented territory. Strand is a fascinating body of work, growing over time and revealing more of it's complexity at every listen. Artwork by Louis Reith. Reverse board-printed inners and jacket; Design by Bartolomé Sanson. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi; Cut at Dubplates & Mastering.