Tu M’: And the Magical Mystery Orchestra: reviews

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And the Magical Mystery Orchestra
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Review

by Darren Bergstein in e|i magazine #3 (USA), June 1, 2004 |818|

“… they’ve unbalanced the equilibrium so cleverly you’re too dazzled to care.”

lnstalling marvelously ornate microtonal universes via the joys of interfacing software constitutes the dynamic of Italian duo Tu M’s laptopica. In an age where the digital spaces between the clicks provide whole new worlds to conquer, Rossano Polidoro and Emiliano Romanelli subvert the principle of cut’n’paste electronic music, working at the sinew of the very genetic material that falls through the cracks, exploiting the vagaries of error, time differential, the precision of the loop, samples of the sample. Though not the first to intimately relate to these compositional models, Tu M’ have absorbed past referents (Steve Reich especially, and, thematically, Terry Riley) to come full Oval, building on Popp’s once-anarchic concepts, striping them of process, of novelty. The duo have, in fact, actualized the beauty of these new digital logics. Where the Magical Mystery orchestra’s clandestine dual meanings (Tu M’s alter egos? Their coalition of sound processors?) figure in is unclear; nevertheless, this album of pastoral “petite digitalique,” austere, beguiling, possibly innovative, thaws the cold veneer of programming into something warm and utterly inviting. Before the Rain and Singing in the Rain betray their edits, but brazenly so: sounds that mimic the reverberations of distressed bells and chimes are compressed, crunched then finally consummated into loops that achieve the linear complexity of macram6. The contrapuntal flutters of A Good Morning, unplugged, might find its analog in the refrains of lap steel guitar, albeit one played at hyperlight speeds; still, a joyful cascadence of warbly treble, borne of mouse and man. The closing Bye misleads the unsuspecting with its graceful "acoustic" piano, but pay attention to the scored edges, the decay of notes tainted and smeared; it’s a tip-off to the sudden deactioned shift of noise that occurs roughly five-and-a-half minutes in, and though Tu m’ reintroduce that piano once again, they’ve unbalanced the equilibrium so cleverly you’re too dazzled to care.


Tu M’: And the Magical Mystery Orchestra: reviews

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