- As a producer paying tribute to electronic music pioneer Luigi Russolo, Claudio Porceddu—AKA Claudio PRC—is in good company. In 2008, Jeff Mills created an installation based around the Futurist movement in which the Italian artist was a central figure. Six years later, Booka Shade held a 100th anniversary concert celebrating Russolo's first performance on prototype synthesisers. Porceddu's latest album, Volumi Dinamici, is named after a Russolo painting, but that isn't the only artist he pays homage to.
Each track comes with an illustration of monochrome blocks that resemble Mark Rothko's Black On Gray series. Where the work of Futurists and abstract expressionists were radical, Porceddu's music generally adheres to certain conventions. The dark and hypnotic minimal techno of his 2012 debut album, Inner State, was in the style of Donato Dozzy and Dino Sabatini, who appears here on "Riflesso." Meanwhile, the fluid grooves and melodic sheen of last year's LP2—by The Gods Planet, his project with Ness—was far removed from the violent and abrasive sounds Russolo envisioned.
Volumi Dinamici is more abstract than Inner State or the 12-inches since 2013's L Synthesis EP. Apart from "Segmento"'s grinding beat and drones—the closest Porceddu gets to industrial techno—the album relies on subliminal suggestion over brute force. Cuts like "Disteso," featuring Blazej Malinowski, create menace through subtle details in the mix, including hisses that give the track a creeping sense of dread.
As you'd expect from a producer engaged in electroacoustic composition, Porceddu's sound design is stunning—another trait he shares with Dozzy and Sabatini. Its crystalline clarity occasionally gives the music a contemplative air. On dance floor tracks such as "Ostinato" and "Materia," there is as much minutiae as there is movement.
Like Rothko's art, this music can induce intense reverie in some listeners; others might say he's just recycling an idea. And if Porceddu's sonic palette can seem limited, that might apply moreso to the music's emotional range, where the mood is uniformly dour. But, within the narrow confines of his canvas, Porceddu often proves himself a master.
Tracklist01. Massa
02. Disteso feat. Blazej Malinowski
03. Ostinato
04. Aleatorio
05. Nova
06. Velato
07. Nitido
08. Segmento
09. Materia
10. Riflesso feat. Dino Sabatini
11. Distacco