Watch and Listen: Roberto Musci’s Experimental Italian Electroacoustic Sounds and Videos from the ‘80s and ‘90s

Let’s talk about Roberto Musci, the Milanese experimental composer whose work both alone and with kindred spirit Giovanni Venosta starting in the 1980s has been gaining attention and earning reissues, most notably through Music from Memory’s 2016 stellar collection, Tower of Silence.

A singular artist who was overlooked by most English-language tastemakers when he was releasing his early records, Musci’s use of field recordings as sample sources sound unlike anything else released at the time, immersive journeys that wove age-old indigenous sounds with modern electronic music.

These sonic voyages were the result of literal trips that Musci began taking in the mid-1970s, as Music from Memory writes in release notes to Tower of Silence. The label recently repressed it and (oh, by the way) we’re currently stocking it.

While studying guitar and saxophone in his hometown of Milan, Musci developed a deep fascination for non-western music and set out to travel across India, Asia and Africa, which he would do extensively between 1974-1985. During his many journeys Roberto would become deeply embedded in each unique world of rhythms, scales and approaches to making and performing music. Throughout this period of travel he would make many field recordings as well as collect and study many traditional and indigenous instruments that he would then later combine with synthesizers and electronics on his return to Italy.

The deeper you get into exploring Musci’s music, the more you realize just how much there is, and how exquisitely imagined all of it is. Deeply involved in the convergence of sound and image, Musci has tapped his YouTube page to offer highlights from across his fascinating career. Combined, they convey a uniquely Musci-ian aesthetic and sensibility, and reinforce the notion that Musci’s output will be echoing for decades to come.

Most notably, Musci has for decades collaborated with multi-instrumentalist Venosta, starting with Venosta’s glistening Olympic Signals in 1984. One of the best overviews of Musci’s work with Venosta can be found at Fond/Sound, where writer/curator Diego Olivas goes deep on their album Water Message on Desert Sand.

What 1987’s Water Messages On Desert Sand was important in showing is how the advent of cheap sampling technology, in this case E-MU’s EMAX sampler, allowed them to really rethink the idea of how you can make something of a certain place, truly unplaceable and deeply more affecting. Using the full extent of the EMAX’s 12-bit technology, Roberto and Giovanni digitally piece together tracks from all sorts of disparate locales in ways that shift them from mere samples into actual tonalities and palettes. 

In 1998, Musci teamed with Venosta and Chris Cutler, percussionist for Henry Cow and founder of the stellar UK label ReR, to perform a live score to Vampyr, the gothic 1929 film by Carl Theodor Dreyer, in Milan. The group improvised in the same way for a number of silent films.

Musci remains active, and for the past half-decade has been creating crypto art and NFTs that combine original visuals and music to create fluidly mesmerizing experiences. He documents his work on Medium, where in his bio he describes his early processes and creations:

“I developed ‘Audiopainting’ technique using an algorithm of ‘Quartz Composer’ which receives video data (colors and movements) which are recorded via the camera together with sounds (frequency and timbre) which are recorded with a microphone, delay, reverb, pitch and envelopes). Sounds modify video images (colors, speed, delay or overlapping or multiplication effects). All this creates a ‘Audiopainting’ loop with music: it’s like painting with music and creating music with images in real time.”

If you have time, you should watch the next one on your biggest screen and at the highest resolution possible — and with the volume amplified to the proper levels.

Unfortunately, live footage of Musci is hard to find. But he posted this clip, which is apparently from 2010. (Whether this particular performance works for you is dependent on how you feel about the spoken word contributions of the poet.)

Tower of Silence doesn’t contain any stream-of-consciousness poetry. It does feature blissful experiments in sound, and is a truly exquisite collection. Details from Music From Memory:

‘Tower of Silence’ brings together a double LP of material from Roberto Musci’s solo recordings commencing with the Loa of Music sessions from 1984 up until later very recent works. The compilation also includes a number of collaborative pieces, many performed and written in collaboration with Giovanni Venosa, such as material taken from their ‘Water Messages On Desert Sand’, which as an album was Grammy-nominated in in the UK in 1987. A unique and at times intensely mesmerising musical world ‘Tower of Silence’ offers an introduction to the work of a unique and visionary artist.

You can currently grab it at In Sheep’s Clothing’s online shop; some lucky subscribers to our monthly ISC Record Club have also added the double LP to their collections.