Francesco Cavaliere, I-A-K INTERPLANETARY-ABYSSAL-KITE, 2024

I-A-K INTERPLANETARY-ABYSSAL-KITE is a composition by Francesco Cavaliere related to the Abyssal Creatures project and the ensemble of concave blown-glass glass sculptures that recall transparent creatures far removed from human representation: coagulations of figured matter functioning as sound sculptures and new instruments of musical production made by Murano glass masters. In the words of Francesco Cavaliere, these large sound bodies “function as ambivalent musical instruments (idiophones, like bells, and aerophones, susceptible to air vibrations) for which the two transparent materials par excellence were used: glass, a rigid and crystalline form, and sound, an intangible element, which by aeriform ways moves and organizes.”

From these sculptures/instruments comes I-A-K Interplanetary-Abyssal-Kite, a record of glass music and abstract electronics. I-A-K is a traversal of abyssal journeys flown over by a cosmic kite that skims, touches and approaches thresholds, peaks and places visible and invisible, returning to us the sound that inhabits and surrounds them. “It is a thousand-eyed sonic binoculars” that fogs up and never decides to stop on one or more defined forms: it is always in motion, bouncing between geometries. The tiles that make up its appearance-crystalline greens, grays and only in some cases orange yellows-were cut out and generated using a 2012 Macintosh OSX computer. Each sound before being arranged ritually passed through three blown glass sculptures named SÀBANAS I, ALIQUOMANÀS and ENQUOMANÀSC, belonging to Abyssal Dynasty I.

Listen to the excerpt

A: (15:24)
B: (15:10)