Various Artists - Canada - Italy / Italia - Canada -1987- (LP, 3ViTrePAIR)

This is an interesting sound-poetry record I found in Italy not too long ago. It came out on the wonderful 3ViTrePAIR label that was founded by Enzo Minarelli, an Italian artist and sound-poet that played a protagonist role in gathering sound-poetry artists on different compilations and hosting poetry festivals during the 80's. He created compilation series around his concept of Polipoesia, that was based upon a manifest on poetry he created. The series were each dedicated to the poetry exchange between different countries. Here we have the compilation that focused on sound poetry from Canada and Italy.

The Canadian poets on the compilation are all from Quebec so the main language used here is French, hence the references to Antonin Artaud the French dramatist and subversive theatre director who also did strange recordings on radio that could be seen as sound poetry to a certain extent. In the liner notes written by Minarelli references are also made to French poets like Henri Chopin and Bernard Heidsieck. The Canadian representatives on this compilation are Pierre-André Arcand, Jean-Claude Gagnon, Alain-Martin Richard, Richard Martel and Gilles Arteau. The poets from Italy are aside from Minarelli himself Gian Paolo Roffi, Corrado Cicciarelli, Massimo Mori and Luigi Pasotelli. Sound poetry has always been important in Italy and this series is another strong example.

The music ranges from sound experiments to casiotone rhythm minimalism to the use of mouth harps, voice manipulation and more. It gives a mail-art music feeling from back in those days that can be experienced on compilation series like the VEC Audio Exchange for example. Here are some contextual words from the liner notes:

It seems, today, after a great deal of sound poetry is touching the limits of the extremest noise, denying value to the word, almost atomized, if not disapeared because it has been reduced to non-significant sound, the thread of the word is taken up again, proposing it in its natural shape. [sic.] Such a return to and into the word can also be explained as a return to a more immediate communication, to a listening pleasure, keeping in the right side the needs of the audience in a theatre or in front of a TV. The authors herewith included prove and point out how the sound experimentation is no longer synonym of ambiguity of communication, but is still possible practising sound experimentation with intelligent grace and refined, oral taste. In a word, more harmony, less disharmony. So, sound poetry is, or can be for those who want to understand, the next step of certain written poetry, at least the right entry door to continue into the oral a process of invention that in the written field it's no longer original and it is still into the most stagnant impasse. - Enzo Minarelli

Get it HERE / Mirror Link

Various Artists - Spagna - Messico - Italia -1988- (LP, 3ViTrePAIR), Italy

Here we have another sound-poetry compilation that was assembled by the Italian sound-poet and artist Enzo Minarelli. He created a series of these compilations that were each dedicated to the exchange of sound-poetry between Italy and other countries and their languages. Spagna - Messico - Italia was the second record in this series and focused on neo-latin roots in modern sounds combining elements and intersections of the Italian and Spanish language through sound-poetry and music.

Although the compilation was published in 1988, the pieces come from different periods. The oldest piece, composed by Mexican poet and actor Guillermo Villegas, is from 1974 while other pieces are from around 1988. It's remarkable that some pieces have a more theatrical aspect and that others have a more musical approach resembling home-taping sounds from the 80's. An artist like Luca Miti on this compilation can be seen as a bridge between those worlds as he also made cassettes.

One of the highlights on this compilation is a piece by Mexican artist Laura Elenes who composed a computerized poem that translates itself into repetitive Casio patterns based on color schemes. Not only can it be seen as an example of sound-poetry, but also as an important piece of Mexican electronic music. The last piece on this compilation is done by Minarelli himself where he creates an intense poem based on different patterns with the words of the four seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter) and other associative words.

"The method of sound poetry, apart from the single, specific characters, can associate acts of research, I dare say international, towards the exploitation of voice and oral word, which are the true protagonists in the poetical progress at the end of this century. The geographical distances are put at zero, as each author, feeling the weariness and strain of the written poetry, composes his own phonic style by similar co-ordinates (orality, musical involvement, signifying rumour, electronics), with different outputs due to different levels of probing and sensitiveness, but belonging to the same effort of getting over the written page for a pure sonority." - Enzo Minarelli, 4th of April 1988, Cento, Italy

Get it HERE
 
 

Various Artists - Audiografika -1989- (Cassette, Po. So. 02), Spain

This contribution stems back from one of the activities carried out by Javier Cinca, who was involved in various home taping, mail art, sound poetry and experimental video projects along the 1980’s and responsible for the cassette label from Zaragoza Sindicato de Trabajos Imaginarios (S.T.I.).

Audiografika belongs to the PO.SO. sub-label, a project which unfortunately could no longer be continued after 1989. PO.SO. stands for Poesía Sónica, Spanish for Sonic Poetry and considered to encompass a wider spectrum than sound poetry, which could go from phonetic poetry all the way to electronic poetry. Such project represents Cinca’s aim to turn towards the elaboration of multimedia editions at a time when such concept became highly popularized. Its first edition, Antología Polipoética – a boxset containing a sound poetry cassette along with a bilingual Italian-English book with a chapter dedicated to each of the twelve artists that participated – featured some of the most prolific Italian sonic poets, with the likes of Enzo Minarelli, Arrigo Lora-Totino, Maurizio Nannucci, Vittore Baroni and Giovanni Fontana among others. 

The second edition Audiografika included the participation of highly acclaimed artists whose practice leaned towards the more vocal side of sound poetry such as Heidsieck and Scherstjanoi, the concrete tape manipulations of Henri Chopin and the electroacoustic works of Riedl. This time, Audiografika was intended to pursue the multimedia path through an exploration of the synesthetic character of the work of its participants, from the Riedl’s ‘Optische Lautgedichte's' or optical sound poems to the visual poems of Scherstjanoi or Chopin. Sadly, Audiografika was never published, and as Cinca recalls, even if around 200 tapes were produced for this edition, only half a dozen from them survived, making them today very hard to source and thus, highly coveted collectable sonic objects.

As a part of a debt contracted through numerous postal exchanges along the 1980’s with many of the artists with which S.T.I. sought to embark itself in different projects, Javier Cinca has now published a book containing most of the letters, collages, various types of poetry and other forms of mail art ephemera he received over the years, together with a digitized version of the Audiografika tape now available through Archaic Inventions.

- Text by Juan Vacas

 

For those interested in acquiring a copy of the book (100 copies only), please contact: stiediciones@gmail.com

Or buy the book through this link at Todocoleccion.

Download the Audiografika Cassette HERE or HERE

Archaic Inventions likes to specially thank Javier Cinca and Juan Vacas for the collaboration.