Marko Ciciliani solo - no-input mixer
Marko Ciciliani is one of the leading performers of the no-input mixer, a mixing board creating sounds by internal feedback circuits.
His work on this instrument explores this analogue principle to its outermost limit, creating virtuosic aural landscapes of great richness and sonic complexity. The focus lies in the application of cross-interfering feedbacks resulting into shifting rhythmic patterns and fragile sounds of parallel running circuits.
PRESS:
only last week i said something about marko cicilliani, and that he seems to be one of the few 'no input mixers' would sounds different from nakamura and this week i received a new work from him. and luckily i was right: it's still different from the 'others'. '81 matters in elemental order' is not about elemental order, but all about disorder. even when its hardly a new concept - the cd which you can play in any, random order (freundshaft, jos smolders and kapotte muziek did this more then a decade ago), it's still something that is fun (or get two copies and play on shuffle!). cicilliani uses the chemical elements and has translated them into very short tracks, somewhere between thirty seconds and one minute. his playing technique has, as said, not changed. hectic, nervous, not always the controller of feedback, quick moves and drone like sounds - they are all present here. its of course an impossible task to say anything substantial about this, as such things as 'composition' doesn't count here. i can say that this is a nice toy to play with, or even one could try to actually compose with the 81 small elements a whole new composition - if only i had the time...
frans de waard, vital weekly 637, 29 juli 2008
http://modisti.com/system/vital-weekly-637-vt12117.html
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you probably already know the croatian marko ciciliani, an active musician in the lively dutch scene and responsible for some interesting releases (among others for the label 'unsounds'). this brand new ‘table of elements’ has all the characteristics to make him literally break through at least for the audience already experienced in more extreme forms of music. he proposes something which is not particularly original, even though at the end the alchemic summa might seem original indeed. the mixer is played without external inputs, all the sounds are simply created through internal feedbacks. like toshimaru nakamura does it. 81 tracks in less than an hour, for an average length of less than a minute for each track, and never exceeding the length of one minute and a half, obviously conceived to be listened in shuffle mode. actually, the idea of taking the symbols of the various elements for the track titles was already used too (in a different context, the table of elements does it already since quite some years) but, also thanks to the cooperation with musicians met in previous years – (the usual) fred frith, gordon mumma, axel dörner and sachiko m – the croatian refined an own rough and hurting language, which is poetic and charming at the same time. all these elements melt together in the listening experience. it is a language which escapes as from the idea of repetition as well as from pop music, instead it applies the webern concept of ‘concentration’. the essence of this music is there, in the core of it, in the primordial idea and it banns out useless developments as well as useless esthetic attempts. ‘e2-e4’ obviously lives on another floor of the building if not even in another area of the city of music or even more, as ‘et’, on another planet. ’81 matters in elemental order’ is a must have cd. i can already hear somebody saying: ‘why should i listen to ciciliani playing a mixer while nakamura did it already?’ the answer seems easy to me and it is another question: ‘why at the end of the sixties were they listening to hendrix playing guitar when there had already been charlie christian?’
e. g., sands-zine, 31/8/2008, sands-zine, translated by s.e.
http://www.sands-zine.com/
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With its about 60 min and 81 index points (shuffle rules!), this CD by Marco Ciciliani on the no-input mixer is a real sound monster. This is how it could sound in the particle accelerator in Cern, if there are sounds developed anyway. Sputtering, catchy, diverse and somehow disconcerting jumping between warm and cold. On a new Dutch label, which presents all his releases in simple and very tasteful cardboard packaging.
Zipo, 8 september 2008, Aufabwegen, http://www.aufabwegen.de/magazin/?paged=8
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a solo no-input mixer composition by feedback virtuoso marko ciciliani. the work consists of 81 tracks of 4 up to 90 seconds in length that should be played back in shuffle mode. each time the cd is played back, the composition's elements are therefore put in a new, unique order. the tracks are poetic translations of the molecular characteristics of chemical elements, adjusted for the untamed circuits of the mixing board. so bizarre, i feel like ciciliani created every waveform and frequency the human ear can possibly perceive, in the 45 minutes that he played. on evil rabbit records.
http://www.roughtrade.com/site/shop_detail.lasso?search_type=sku&sku=304199&anchor=err09
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'A true surprise was the performance of the Croat Marko Ciciliani, who played a 'no-input mixer'. Using internal feedbacks of the mixing-board as the sole sound source, he created an extremely varied piece that intrigued throughout it's entire length of 30 minutes.'
De Volkskrant, Netherlands, 5 September 2003, Peter Bruyn
Bio:
Born in 1970 in Croatia, Marko Ciciliani received his musical training as a composer, music theorist and electronic musician in New York, Hamburg and The Hague. Already during his studies he has collected extensive experience not only in the fields of "academic" composition, but also in free improvisation and with various pop-settings. He has written for a variety of settings, including orchestra, ensembles, solo works and sound installations, often including live-electronics or other media like light, video or cartoons. Since 1996 he lives in Amsterdam/Netherlands.
Typical for Ciciliani's work is that it tries to combine seemingly contradictory materials, giving the composition a feeling of experiment and playfulness, with surprising turns and a variety of color.
Ciciliani's music has been played all over Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia and is present at festivals such as Wien Modern, Huddersfield, Bregenzer Festspiele, Zagreb Biennale, ISCM World Music Days, Gaudeamus, Forum Neuer Musik Deutschlandfunk, Novembermusic, Open Systems, Roaring Hooves Mongolia, Das Neue Werk NDR Hamburg, Música a Metrònom /Barcelona and elsewhere.He has written for ensembles such as ASKO, ensemble Intégrales, Zeitkratzer, Orkest de Volharding, Interzone Perceptible, MAE and others.
In 2006 Ciciliani founded the group Bakin Zub, an ensemble comprising five distinguished musicians from different backgrounds. Bakin Zub is dedicated to the performance of Ciciliani's music while placing an emphasis on the combination of sound and light. In April 2007 Bakin Zub premiered and toured the evening-length multimedia work "My Ultradeep I" which received critical acclaim.
As a performer Ciciliani has specialised in the no-input mixer, a mixing board which does not use any external inputs, but where all sounds are created through internal feedbacks. As an improviser he has given concerts with Fred Frith, Gordon Mumma, Jaap Blonk, Axel Dörner and Sachiko M, amongst others. He has toured extensively with this instrument in different countries and continents, most recently on a solo tour in Australia.
As a performer of electronic parts he has furthermore worked with a.o. the Südwest Rundfunkorchester Freiburg/Baden-Baden (Donaueschinger Musiktage), Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, ASKO, Schönberg Ensemble, the Radiofilharmonisch Orkest Hilversum, MusikFabrik and the Slagwerkgroep Den Haag.
Ciciliani has regularly given lectures and seminars at various universities in the USA, Australia and Europe. He is following a PhD program at the Brunel University London on the combination of sound and light.
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