Roberto Cacciapaglia - Sei Note In Logica

One of two reissues from Superior Viaduct of the astonishing italian minimalist Roberto Cacciapaglia, arriving in store like so many other records last year just as we were winding down. Cacciapaglia's entire catalogue is a thing of awe and inspiration, and Sei Note In Logica might just be its crowning glory, a continuous suite that positions the Italian school of minimalism as every bit the equal to its more widely celebrated American counterpart. First released in 1979 (and with THAT cover, an incredibly expressive mise en scene in itself), it landed around the same time as Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and was clearly drinking from the same well, a confluence of reeds, marimbas and strings teeming with a sense of motion and life. Still, if Music for 18 Musicians is its immediate contemporary, it's perhaps 1995's City Life that provides the best example of shared understandings, a vibrant, non-repeating suite that seems to conjure its own sense of drama and event - again, the cover of Sei Note In Logica does some of the heavy lifting here: you can hear that sound within that scene, and imagine the arcing narrative threads from it. In short, this is highly detailed, expressive composition that somehow conveys something bigger than the sum of it's already ambitious parts. As an extension of that, you might also sense an affinity with the Lovely Music sect (and when is Robert Ashley ever too far from such conversations?) and the inherent melodrama in Julius Eastman's admittedly more radical communications. Nonetheless, Cacciapaglia is his own force. I make these comparisons to arguably more well known names only so as to stress the import of his. Rarely is vision, virtuosity and emotional connection so aligned. A truly breathtaking endeavour.