Aisthànomai The Reviews
Translation from Italian Press by Lorenzo Marranini
(BLOW UP magazine)
(Rockerilla)
ALESSIO ARENA(DREXKODE.NET)
DELIO SALOTTOLO (LABAUT)
ALESSANDRO MICHELUCCI (CORSICA MAGAZINE)
MASSIMO SALARI (ROCK IMPRESSIONS)
ROBERTO FILIPPOZZI (DARKROOM. MAGAZINE)
(MESCALINA)
(RITUAL-MAGAZINE)
BLOW UP MAGAZINE 119, APRIL 2008.
Romina Daniele has been awarded with the Demetrio Stratos International Award and in her new album we can notice not only a great vocal ability - power and versatility – but a great talent interpreting the sense of music and composing abilities as well. You can listen/read ‘Aisthànomai’ like a theoretical work, an organized anthology and a poetical-musical form.
First, it is necessary to read the booklet texts where the aesthetics topics are discussed. "‘Voice-Matter-Nature. ‘Electronics-Suond-Technique. Language-Text-Concept’. These are the territories in which Aisthànomai takes shape… and where my cognitive non-condition law is placed as an expressive aim freely pursued."
In a second point of view, the work offers a charming performance/interpretation.
The transfiguration of the song form through the organic changing of the voice (Materia), vocals-electronics assimilation (Echo, Vero Remake II), the dramatic experimentation on the text-vocals (Dix ans, vingt ans), sound poetry (Vero Remake I) and the total theatre-song (Poesis I). The work has different influences:
Galàs, La Barbara, Meredith Monk, Stratos, the experimental Julie Tippett.
Finally, almost in despite of her theoretic will (which can hamper the total fruition),
‘Aisthànomai’ is mainly a sensory experience (if not sensual) with the vibrating woman body, into urgency (impact) of the reunification. "I do not enjoy all the happiness, remember, it is divided in two parts, and both include emptiness’, it seems Emily Dickinson. But it is necessary to get into the voice labyrinth. [Dionisio Capuano]
ROCKERILLA 334, JUNE 2008.
I have spent an entire afternoon listening to this beautiful and brave album.
Romina is a young singer who spends her life studying the voice.
A devotion which led her win the Demetrio Stratos award.
"The Voice Is The Original Instrument", this was the title of a work by Joan La Barbara, ‘At the beginning it was the Word’, said someone before.
About aesthetic research texts (Aisthànomai is a Greek word which means to perceive, to realize).
The voice and the sound are so pure and so well performed that literally take the breath away. As if the plastic of the voice would be shaped here in a new aesthetics. Sometimes her research could be similar to the one done by Diamanda Galas some years ago - especially at the beginning of the album - but her semantic and musical approach is personal and sometimes heartbreaking too. Voice and electronics trying to define a meaning for this particular aesthetic and etymological project which draws equations between sensation, perception, art and representation of pain.
An experience which Romina is sharing with the listener evoking dark landscapes and some atmospheres similar to Bataille regarding the same expanded concepts.
A unique voice in the Italian musical scene. [Massimo Marchini]
DREXKODE.NET.
Let’s start from the end, imagine you are on a sea cliff… you can slip or try to fly, charmed by sirens’ call…but the mental magnet is roaming.
The complexity of the work of Romina Daniele is based on her fine vocal research, a way of using the voice as an instrument, like Diamanda Galas, but here there is more. A peculiar combination of different disciplines including theatre, philosophy, aesthetics and electronics used as a movie soundtrack. Aisthànomai - the Greek term that means ‘to perceive, to understand’ – with its essay and its multifaceted directions, it can be seen as a real opera of avant-garde theatre. Romina Daniele put herself in front of the audience stimulating it and producing a thrilling and a charming sound with vocals creating dark/shining atmospheres throwing the listener in a "lyrics-voice-music" spiral that oblige us to confront with ourselves.
‘Retro’ and ‘Post’ are two mannequins which have been taken and beaten, but it would be misleading doing too much personal descriptions, what is clear is that when the match ends, we find ourselves disoriented.
The vocal control is technically remarkable for what concern the vocal timbres and the expressive act that we can imagine just by the sounds.
Versatile tracks like ‘Sguardo (take2)’ seems like the Oz witch or ‘Poesis I’ recalls Badalamenti of David Lynch soundtracks. Then musical atmosphere like G.P'Orridge, but also a dark/ambient that goes into an unclear essence which can be seen by eyes not yet ready to light, sometimes similar to ‘Teatro Satanico’, from Italy too. Her unique and mutating voice creates endless moods. Aisthànomai is a great opera of direction, life and drama, asking the audience to take up the challenge and stay until the end. Whispers and screams. [Alessio Arena]
LABAUT, MARZO 2008.
We could think… beyond the One (as sense, belonging, voice, word and sensation) and the Manifold (of senses excluding themselves, of the (non)belongings, of the (un)responsible sounds, of the (non)meaning, of the emotional cords skinned from the sounds), but we do not have to care about this: we have to face the real danger [...] [Delio Salottolo]. [Full text available in intalian at Aisthànomai Reviews page (italian version)]
ROCK IMPRESSIONS
[...] we can listen electronics on which the singer express herself completely, her voice going beyond, above its structural logics which we have always been used to in our music listening. Intensity, weirdness and theatrical atmospheres together in a reticular way. As the artist says: ‘Aisthànomai involves sound diffractions and introduces text diffractions (whereas the text commonly intended is the symbol of the omniscience I want to unhinge) and digital diffractions…’ [...] [Massimo Salari] Full review (Italian) here.
CORSICA MAGAZINE. OCTOBER 2008.
Romina Daniele (...) is among the most interesting independent new artists of the Italian music scene. She uses the voice like an instrument and this projects her in a field of rarity (...) Aisthànomai (2008, indipendent) (...) has gained a good attention from the press. Two years ago, the musician put the first brick of her sonorous and conceptual building with Diffrazioni Sonore (2005, indipendent).
Aisthànomai continues on that way, clarifying the contents and the focuses.
It is not just a record, but a complex work in which sound, theory and poetry are interlaced (...) The extreme particularity of the vocal approach is coupled with long texts, and the vocal and poetic researches are married.
The record doesn’t fall “in to the false waters of anti conformism”, as we can read in the booklet. Romina Daniele refuses to be defined like an avant-garde artist, because she thinks this expression is empty and abused.
Her research is directed to the origin of the sound, not to a hypothetical future. The booklet contains a long text in which Romina expresses her musical and philosophical considerations [...]
[Full text (italian) available at Italian press review page]
DARKROOM MAGAZINE.
Romina Daniele is not so much known yet, but she is representing one of the best new artist of the Italian avant-garde musical scene. In 2005 she has been awarded with the Demetrio Stratos International Award for musical experimentation thanks to her first record. This award has been given to Meredith Monk too and it is dedicated to the memory of Demetrio Stratos which has given a great contribution to the musical experimentation with his band Area and the solo career (...)[Roberto Alessandro Filippozzi]
Full review (Italian) here
MESCALINA.IT
[...] is one of those albums which we are always less used to (…) concentrating on the sound, it is a work about frequencies, often about very low frequency sound waves (…) The voice is the main theme of the entire album, not an instrument, but a way to create synonyms; the voice is the presence of the artist herself (...) divided and re-composed, separated in frequencies which are able to dilate, lay, smooth over and strengthen themselves (...) Romina Daniele is presenting a work that leave the listener satisfied for the opportunity to appreciate an experimental work and a research about sounds, dynamics, vocal timber, theatre, poetry, aesthetics, body. [Simone Broglia]
Full review (Italian) here.
RITUAL MAGAZINE, N. 35, JULY/AUGUST 2008.
[...] extreme vocal experimentation [...] layered and assembled vocal tracks [...] unusual harmonic features. A brave and versatile work - which include also two extracts from the ‘Ascenseur pour l'échafaud’ soundtrack - for a young artist [...] [Tony Aramini]
[Full text (italian) available at Italian press review page]
Other releases
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Album 2015
Diffrazioni Sonore
Album 2005-2010
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1st Album by Sheen
APPRODI III
AA.VV. Compilation
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