Giancarlo Bracchi - Silicon Immortality [Circuit Torçat]

Silicon Immortality is a nice half-hour tape by NY synth artist Giancarlo Bracchi, released on Barcelona sound artist Juan Matos Capote's excellent Circuit Torçat label.

The tape finds Bracchi creating two side-long pieces with a Roland Juno-6 synthesizer and a theremin. The first side features smooth circular tones, almost like playing wine glasses, which Bracchi jumpstarts a delayed synth melody over the top of. Bracchi layers further, adding a synthetic clicking/ringing tone as well as plenty of theremin and synth swoops. The piece gets better as the rhythmic synth figure gets pushed back a touch and the theremin's warbling coos and synth manipulations take over. It's a total jam, the initial figure is explored and improvised on through the entire piece. Around halfway though, Bracchi introduces a really nice melody. It only manages to peek through at certain points but man, I love it. The melody is able to shine through later though Bracchi navigates his Juno into rougher territory whipping up some rumbling noise. In a surprising move, everything drops out except that initial synth figure. Bracchi goes wild on either his Juno or theremin, I can't quite tell, making for a clusterfuck of delayed tones. The melody that I love so much does return to send the track off in its final seconds. Bracchi knows when he has a good thing.

The second side kicks off with an immediately more ethereal vibe. There's heavy delay creating a cascading melody that continues before being phased out for a more skeletal, echoing arpeggio. It's actually pretty groovy, Bracchi moves heavily filtered tones through a jaunty set of delay pedals making for a surprisingly buoyant riff. Bracchi gradually adds subtle layers in the final minutes, slowly expanding the simple but elegant piece. He still squeezes a minor Juno freakout in the final minutes, unwilling to go down completely like a spoonful of sugar. At the end of the piece he seems ready to go all over again, with a melody standing tall by its lonesome.

Overall, this is a cool tape, definitely worth a look from all the synth heads out there. I probably prefer the first side as it reminds me a bit of synthesizer film scores from the 70s and 80s. But I love to hear all analog set-ups and you know I'm always psyched to hear the underused theremin back in action!

Limited to 50, with great artwork and matching color case per Circuit Torçat's typically classy aesthetic. Check it out and pick up the other killer Torçat tapes while yr at it.