Daniele Ciullini
Domestic Exile (Collected Works 82-86)
The first reissue release on Ecstatic comes from Italian ’mail-artist’ Daniele Ciullini.
Hailing from Florence, Ciullini was part of the forward-thinking TRAX collective, whose pan european art/music collaboration network acted as a proto-social network decades in advance of the internet.
This compilation collects Ciullini’s self released 'Domestic Exile' cassette (1983) as well as selections from a series of other compilations(1982 to 1986)
When asked about the title 'Domestic Exile' Ciullini explains: The music in the original cassette release was born in a very difficult period of my life. A period marked by a rift with the world. 'Domestic Exile' reflects a time of recession, entrenchment within the walls of a tired soul. Most of the songs are improvised on the spot. Listening to the music today I think this aspect was perhaps naive. But I enjoyed realising something very close to my inner state at that moment.
Ciullini's music is as sharp and controlled as his elegant photographic images of decadent marble statues, mannequins and deserted Art-Nouveau architecture.He describes these songs as rapid "sonic polaroids” in which synthetic sketches and "Oriental" keyboard “voices” sit side by side with vigorous electro-industrial rhythm and metronomic modified drum machine pulses.
His music presciently fuses ambient and industrial, as well as echoing the synthetic alienation of 8 bit micromusic, the melodic wave sounds of Young Marble Giants, and even a proto-shoegaze guitar (see Soft Marble, with reciting voice) as well as hints of drone music (the magmatic loops of Bloody Machine).
Tracklisting
01. Violet 1:29
02. Marbles In The Garden 2:14
03. Trance 2:16
04. Lipstick On The Glasses 2:33
05. Decadence 1:30
06. Naked And White 2:21
07. Flowers In The Water 2:20
08. The Shadow Whisper 2:20
09. Deep Water 1:21
10. Silence 2:32
11. Silence 3 2:11
12. Networking 1:58
13. Notte Rossa A 1:00
14. Notte Rossa B 1:11
15. Soft Marble 3:41
16. Bloody Machine 4:11