MAI MAI MAI
Φ
(Phi)
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Mai Mai Mai names his poisonous, punishing electronic miasmas after characters of the Greek alphabet, beginning with Theta (Boring Machines, 2013) and followed by Δέλτα (Delta) in 2014 (Yerevan Tapes). Φ (Phi) is the third and final installment in his Mediterranean trilogy, pushing the project deeper into a vivid interzone of digital synthesis and scorched ritual. The album opens with a searing collaboration with avant-folk instrumentalist Luca Venitucci, locked into a lofty duel of distorted drones, before pivoting to a throbbing oblivion of jackhammer bass, seething feedback, and combat samples. Later passages ooze through industrial spoken word, technoid voodoo hallucination, seasick prayer loops, and nightmare exotica, assisted in places by Italian experimental percussion legend Lino Capra Vaccina (of 1970’s “golden age” groups Aktuala and Telaio Magnetico). MMM ascribes a degree of his maximalist tendencies to a rootless youth packed with parents through Europe and the Near East, absorbing fragments of sensation and sound, but his own decade-plus experience in the Italian underground has doubtless played a role as well. Intensity accrues, patience decays.
Closure is its own reward.
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Hombrelobo Studio by V. Fisik.
Artwork and design by LEGNO
photography by Ilaria Doimo
Luca Venitucci: Accordion on A1
Lino Capra Vaccina: Vibraphone, Percussions, Gong on B3
