THE ALIAS SESSIONS
New double CD & triple vinyl album
Out now on The Leaf Label
The Alias Sessions is the fruit of my long term collaboration with Guilherme Botelho's Alias dance company, based in Geneva, and it also marks my return to The Leaf Label, after 13 years!
This new double album contains music from two of Alias' choreographic works that I've made the music for: Contre-Mondes (2017) and Normal (2018), re-worked and adapted for album format and mastered onto analogue tape.
The first single is called Underwater Lament and it's part of the "Contre-Mondes" score, or CD1. The videoclip that accompanies it is a composition based on live video footage of the same choreographic work, done with minimal editing (other than a few inverted or overlaid images) as to maintain the original intention, but with just enough extra spice to make it stand on it's own:
The second single is called Dividing Space and it's part of the "Normal" score, or CD2. This time the videoclip was commissioned to Gleix, a video artist / musician / circuit bender based in NY, to bring in a fresh perspective on Alias's work. It was done in beautiful analog style using images from Contre-Mondes as source material, but the meaning has been totally transformed:
And the third and final single is "Fire Thief" and it's also taken from Normal. (CD2). This track consists of two main protagonists, an old school analogue synth arpeggio, or rather several working together, driving the tempo and dynamics of the track, and a violin in charge of a main slow moving melody that comes and goes, and not much else. This piece comes right after the previous single, Dividing Space, both live and in the album.
The title is completely open to interpretation.
The video was made by Christophe Thockler, for this purpose he built a meticulously hand crafted model of an imaginary theater where the dance performances birthing the music on the album takes place (with a wink to the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks).
Here's what he had to say:
“When Murcof presented me his new project, the result of a collaboration with the Alias Dance Company, he showed to me the performance where dancers were falling and rising, again and again,” Thockler explains. “I was mesmerized by this kind of strange and hypnotic choreography, and I immediately thought about how hard the performance would have been for the dancers - disorientating, seeing the seats of the theater, rising and falling as they are performing. The point of view of the dancers became the main concept, and we thought we could make a small theater to imitate this movement.”
We hope you enjoy it:
The album was released on May 21st 2021 as a double CD and spread over six sides of vinyl.
The vinyl will be packaged in a deluxe spot-varnished gatefold sleeve, with initial pressings including an additional gatefold insert containing extraordinary images from the ‘Contre-Mondes’ performances. An edition of 300 on blood red vinyl will be available exclusively through Norman Records and Bandcamp. A concrete grey vinyl edition of 500 will be available from independent record shops worldwide, as well as a standard black vinyl edition.
We also now have the first ever murcof t-shirts available for order. We have glossy black logo on black and white logo on black.
You can order them on my bandcamp
New release out now on CD and digital
2018 Glacial Movements
In Lost in Time, two parallel narratives intertwine: the first follows a helmet-clad, faceless horse and rider adrift in an indeterminate landscape of ice and snow, quite literally lost in time and space, while the second seems to allude to a strange scientific experiment. Lost in Time plunges us into perpetual renewal, each ending leading to a new beginning
The protagonists – two beings bound by a certain mutual dependence – are forever trapped in a time loop where life and death ceaselessly rotate.The use of what are almost exclusively black figures against white landscapes produces a menacing, otherworldly atmosphere that is also stunningly beautiful.
IL MIRACOLO
Original soundtrack by Murcof for the Italian TV series by Niccolo Ammaniti
The young Prime Minister Fabrizio Pietromarchi, an upright politician, progressive, atheist, is facing the most delicate moment of his political career, while his wife, the explosive and indomitable Sole, is threatening to leave him.
Father Marcello, an outer city priest, after years of devout faith and missions in Africa, has become prey to irrepressible drives: gambling, sex and pornography destroy his soul. He is looking for a sign from God to defeat the devil. General Votta, a solitary man, a guardian of security, an enemy of anything that may disturb the established order, is suffering from a troublesome form of sinusitis. Sandra is a haematologist who for years has been treating a mother who has reached a vegetative state, sacrificing every other aspect of her life for her, even her love for Amanda. She would do anything to restore her to life.
These are the first four people to come into contact with the incredible relic found in the hideout of the mob boss Molocco: a statuette of the Madonna that ceaselessly weeps blood. They’re the ones who take on all responsibility for the find. An abandoned army swimming pool is the place chosen to shelter this apparently inexplicable mystery; one capable of destabilizing a country already hanging on a delicate balance. The intellect, reasoning, the national interest, faith or science are the paths taken to find an answer to the incomprehensible phenomenon. But the search for answers only multiplies the questions to pose. Anyone who attempts to understand, handle or contrast the Madonna ends up in a chasm of events that will change their lives irreversibly, keeping intact the unfathomable power of the miracle.
