Per Una Scultura Di Ceschia

An oft-overlooked Italian avant-prog album from the late seventies, Per una scultura di Ceschia (For a Sculpture by Ceschia) was recorded by Nascita della Sfera (Birth of the Sphere), a collective helmed by Carlo Barbiera. As the title intimates, the album’s based around the sculptural work of Luciano Ceschia, though you’d forgive the passing listener for not making an immediate connection between the wide-ranging music here and sculptural practice. Barbiera’s vision is wide-ranging here, and it’s surprising to hear acoustic guitar interludes amid this electro-acoustic edit-scape that feel like they fell off the back of a Takoma album — it’s pure Americana. Elsewhere, gusts of noise shatter the calm, deep divining electronics stumble drunkenly over dramatic piano interjections, and vocal clips and birdsong chatter into the void. There’s plenty of bucolic loveliness here, but it’s always disrupted by the brutish cut of the tape.