Tracey Feels Worse
Format: CD
Label: Elevator Bath
Cat No: eeaoa055
Elevator Bath is honored to present the first ever release of sound work from famed music writer Massimo Ricci.
Known as an individualistic reviewer - or, as he puts it, a "composer using words as his main instrument" - in the meantime Ricci has been researching, dissecting and altering sounds, something he has been doing since the late 60s.
"Tracey Feels Worse" consists of a single 35-minute piece based on recordings made by the composer in 1984, which, over time, were radically rearranged and reformed. Now in its final state, the piece is a wholly abstract undertaking; ominous and deliciously inscrutable.
The work does not contain hidden meanings or esoteric implications, nor does it want to symbolize unprovable "truths." Ricci - an atheist lone wolf who despises the opportunistic traits of false spirituality - processed extremely simple sources to the point of near-unrecognizability, generating enigmatic spirals and indeterminate environments from what was originally born as mere parody.
The specific sounds and techniques employed remain mysterious, as neither samples nor loops were utilized. But this mystery is fitting for such a haunting, ephemeral piece of music - even if the sound is robust. Indeed, there is an almost physical presence to the ever-shifting elements at play here. The soundscape is in constant motion, yet the overall impression is of a kind of uneasy calm. Perhaps the piece's structure lends itself to a feeling of anxious serenity. The sounds unnerve while the methodology soothes.
The piece's palindromic construction recalls the ghosts of Victorian literature, doomed to repeat their movements in an endless cycle for all eternity. But ultimately, in Ricci's words, "'Tracey Feels Worse' may be interpreted as a threnody for the risible irrationality of the human theories about creation and afterlife. Typically fabricated by minds anxious to satisfy the needs of the self, they're pitifully inadequate for the egoless infinity of sound and silence."