VORTEX

"Phanopoeia"

Tesco Organisation - 2009

CD

This new dark ambient project is inspired by Vorticism, a short-lived artistic avantgarde movement born in England in 1913. It was painter and poet Percy Wyndham Lewis to promote a new vision of art with his magazine "Blast", involving other painters, sculptors and writers in the process. Much more than a simple English version of Futurism, the Vortex movement presented a more abstract point of view, especially in the visual arts, that wasn't appreciated by the conservative critics of the time. It was Ezra Pound to give the name itself and write extensively about it, and his own voice appears on the CD from time to time, with excerpts from the famous recordings we've got to know very well through the years.

The project Vortex takes inspiration from those ideas, trying to develop them in the only field never touched by Vorticism: music. While Futurism has been extensively quoted by classic industrial acts such as Esplendor Geometrico or Vivenza, with their hammering metal thuds and machinery rhythms, the abstraction connected to Lewis' original vision takes now form into dark ambient, with occasional noise elements (metal thuds and distant hypnotic rhythms) and minimal, classical instruments like piano and violin melt into the structure. It's the kind of disquieting and melancholic music you want to listen in the solitude of your room, maybe with headphones, while outside is raining and you're not in the best mood.

"Phanopoeia" is definitely another very interesting development for Tesco, standing aside Apoptose in the label's exploration of territories different from the harsh and noisy ones that had become its trademark. The dark melodic and eerie atmospheres conjured by Vortex's music are sure to haunt you to the right extent.

- Simon V.

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/vortexphanopoeia