Alessandro Bosetti - Il Fiore della Bocca

Rossbin
RS025

It’s very difficult to figure out how and from what angle to approach this recording. In summary, it’s not all that complicated: Bosetti has recorded the voices of various people with physical and mental handicaps and used these recordings as the basis for fifteen relatively brief pieces, sometimes allowing them to stand on their own, more often mixing them with electronics, splicing them among each other and so on. It was originally conceived as a “radio play” and was occasionally performed in the presence of some of the speakers, though I’m unsure how much, if any, interactivity occurred during these performances. In a description of the work, one encounters this elaboration: “A long series of conversations, where spastic, aphasic and larynx-less persons are confronted with examples of "deconstructed voice" (in the tradition of experimental music and sound poetry)”. I can’t quite understand how the “confronted” part of that works here. Of course, one cedes Bosetti the benefit of the doubt with regard to any exploitative possibilities but even so, it’s hard not to let such intimations seep in around the edges of one’s consciousness while listening to the disturbing voices.

The first piece, “Musik”, is an unadorned woman’s voice, slurred and sing-songy, clearly someone without full use of her faculties. Do we listen to enjoy the musical aspects of her speech? It’s possible but exceedingly uncomfortable to do so. You hearken back, unfortunately but unavoidably, to things like Ilhan Mimaroglu’s voice-tape experiments of the 60s. The next cut, “Komiker”, overlays different voices, some laughing, bathed in an electronic, ambient hum. It’s more “digestible” as you’re able to more easily sublimate the voices; but should you do so? By doing so are you avoiding the heart of the matter? “Buchstaben” (“Letter”) finds several people reciting the alphabet and the electronics, to these ears, rather brutally interfere with the sense of sadness one gets from this activity, juvenile to most of us but doubtless something of an ordeal for these voices, reducing them to mere sound elements. This kind of problem reasserts itself throughout the disc until, perhaps, the final three pieces where Bosetti achieves enough of a synthesis, somehow, that everything feels balanced and can be heard purely as music. Of course, even here, you can’t wash away the sense of guilt at not treating the sources of these sounds as fully human. At best, you simply assume that the people who have had their voices recorded are entirely aware of the uses to which they’re being put and approve of the project, understanding the best intentions of Bosetti though it’s very hard to imagine that this is the case. Or you just accept this particular usage as not very different from the standard “exploitation” you’d have in any field recording that happened to utilize voices or other human activity for its own ends. If the latter, and I admit I have difficulties doing this, the music is reasonably interesting, sometimes, as in “Wonderful World” and the closing “Ich”, very absorbing. It’s the listener’s call. I do admire Bosetti for putting these questions out there, though, and for causing this listener to engage in a good deal of reflection.

Rossbin