Manticora Editions

Manticore, also spelled mantichora, manticora, or mantiger, is a chimera having the head of a man (often with horns), the body of a lion, and the tail of a dragon or scorpion.

Chimera is an animal that has two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originate from different zygotes. Each cell population retains its own characteristics and the resulting animal is a blend of mismatched regions. An analogy is two puzzles cut identically, but with different figures. a single puzzle may consist of mismatched parts, but the complete puzzle will show regions of both different figures.

A mixtape (alternatively mix-tape, mix tape or mixed tape) is a compilation of music, typically from multiple sources, recorded onto a medium.

Manticora editions is an ongoing project that was born in 2023 as a mixtape label from the heads of Carolina Martines and Giovanni Lami. This label was born with the aim of creating sound monsters through the union of different genres, people and forms of expression.

Bandcamp

Nuova superficie

The duo of Lami-Malatesta is based upon an active idea of horizontal actions in progress, that slowly change and melt over the course of the performance. Sound originates from several speakers and – in general – from different diffusion points, amplified or not, analog or acoustic, in a non-referential movement. The one and only need is to produce a simple sound-mass, seemingly static but unceasingly evolving through the labour of the musicians. They use their own instruments (as form and gesture) mainly on the surface, moving objects and working upon the skin of an amplified snare or directly in contact with the tape of the reel-to-reel recorder, trying to activate what is already present there but quiescent.

The aim is to realize a complex sound-space where each listening-experience can be free to evolve and wander and get lost. The sound is made from several diffusion points and is defined by sounds on the cusp of a dense texture, really homogeneous yet rich in detail and micro-perturbations. This non-stop negotiation between details on the horizon and the horizon itself, this lack of balance, and the interaction with the space hosting the performance is the base of this project, that could be considered as something in between electroacoustic music and site-specific action.

Cut#01

Cut#02

Cut#03

Hysteresis

On the meditation about the arrangement of sound events and layering them on the timeline I-V (2017)

I realized that it can take other forms, others then the one imposed. Not just a section, but a circle or an ellipse, a closed path where you may see a cyclic repeat of events where not everything has a beginning and an end.

So, impressing /recording these events on the tape does not happen in a linear way, but through changes of direction, slowdowns and disconnections between the time the event happens in the real and its repetition on the new timeline. It’s still linear of course, but internally configured by successions of recurring sound-germs, arranged on different levels and filtered in a different ways. It’s like a patina laying on the renewed patina, on a renewed patina, on the renewed surface, recorded on tape.

Curling / Crumpling

There is a perfect match between hysteresis (concept) and this kind of practice: both are in the field of reality, and both are related to objects (physical objects, sound objects, living things).

$and / ßand

Hysteresis I

Hysteresis II

Hysteresis III

Hysteresis IV