Soundtrack, the fourth album by the free-form group Illachime Quartet

Soundtrack (for parties on the edge of the void) – is a concept divided into two parts inspired by “Cinque pezzi facili”, a 1970 cult film: Part A (five Easy Pieces) composed of reworkings of the group’s original soundtracks produced for various films and documentaries, and Part B (Five Uneasy Pieces), the result of two improvisation sessions held by Illachime in February 2018. The album, a complex project, was entirely recorded in the Asilo theatre and members of the community contributed to its creation with the graphics, some photos, communication, and technical support. The work saw the passionate participation of a large number of musicians (nineteen, in addition to the quartet), artists and technicians, who all generously donated their availability to the project. This is the complete list of participants: Carlo Mascolo, Lauro Rossi, Shelly Bisirri (trombone), Charles Ferris, Ciro Riccardi, Lee Koelz (trumpet, flugelhorn), Giulio De Asmundis, Giuseppe Giroffi, Max Fuschetto, Pietro Santangelo (sax), Elisa Vito (bassoon), Francesca Diletta Iavarone (flute), Marcello Vitale (electric mandolin), Marco Pezzenati (vibraphone), Nino Spezzano, Rosa Maria Meoli (clarinet, bass clarinet), Sara Piccegna (oboe), Sergio Albano (guitar), Umberto Lepore (double bass), Marco Messina, Carlo Di Gennaro (mixing), Giovanni Roma (mastering), Francesco Napolitano, Sabrina Merolla (photo), Elena Cepollaro, Luca Serafino (graphics). After going on hiatus in 2011, the Illachime Quartet project restarted in 2015 in the particular and vital context of the Asilo – exasilofilangieri.it of Naples, a public space dedicated to culture and managed in an open and collective manner according to the principles of creative commons, which in recent years has become a point of reference and case study in Italy and Europe. In the artistic field, Asilo has triggered processes of production and artistic experimentation based on the permanent contamination between different arts and knowledge that have overturned the concept of cultural policies in recent years, and it is here that Illachime's new album was tested, recorded and presented, making use of the collaboration of artists and operators who are part of its solidarity community and was produced thanks to crowdfunding launched through its communication channels. The soul of the music that comes out of it is imbued with the multiple expressive possibilities generated by this extraordinary space of freedom that for 7 years has constantly supported research music, has encouraged the birth of new groups that have had the opportunity to express themselves and get to know each other right between the tables of its stages, has hosted masters of international music and formed a new audience that is increasingly larger, heterogeneous and prepared.
For Illachime Quartet, live activity had stopped in 2012 when they released their third album, considered the final act of an adventure that began ten years earlier and which had led the band to collaborate with artists of the caliber of Graham Lewis of Wire, Mark Stewart of The Pop Group, the no-wave trumpeter and guitarist Rhys Chatham, the German Schneider TM known for his electronic textures, the jazz pianist Salvatore Bonafede and the electro-acoustic composer Domenico Sciajno; all artists who have brought surprising sound textures enriching the variegated sound of the group.
Their artistic break, however, has not extinguished the fire of a transversal musical research, which combines post-rock, film music, improvisation, minimal electronics, jazz and noise. At the end of 2015, on the occasion of the presentation of the volume Solchi Sperimentali Italia by Antonello Cresti – which indicated the band among the most relevant musical experiences of the last fifty years of history of other music in Italy (dedicating two pages and an interview to them) – the band was invited by the Asilo Filangieri of Naples to play in public. Since then, the relationship between Illachime and the Asilo has deepened to the point of designing this fourth album together.