ODG242-OUC056 : Alessandro Ciccarelli - Milena Punzi Anfossi / Improvisations for the Land
Alessandro Ciccarelli (see also OJP083) and Milena Punzi Anfossi return with a new recording that bears witness to the depth of their musical rapport and their interplay within the field of improvisation.
Unlike their first album, "All’improvviso", the instrumentation here is deliberately reduced to its essentials: Milena’s electric cello enters into dialogue with an analog synthesizer played by Alessandro. From this minimal combination emerges an extremely mobile sonic space, where instrumental gesture and electronics intertwine in a continuous search for relationships, tensions, and resonances. The warm, tactile timbre of the cello expands, fractures, and recomposes itself in interaction with the textures of the synthesizer, generating soundscapes suspended between density, silence, and transformation.
The session was recorded in December 2024, during the ongoing genocide in Gaza, carried out with the complicity of Western governments. Faced with the horror of the images and the suffering of an entire people, the artists could not remain indifferent and began to question what role art might play in the face of events of such magnitude.
If art cannot stop violence, it cannot remain entrenched in an isolated and self-referential sphere either: instead, it must connect with the world, open spaces for listening, and invite reflection on what is happening.
For this reason, the tracks on the album take their names from three Palestinian villages in the Gaza region destroyed during the Nakba in 1948, in an attempt to place contemporary events within a broader historical perspective.
Thus "Improvisations for the Land" was born, whose cover image is a graphic reworking based on aerial photographs of the three destroyed villages.
In this work, improvisation becomes a territory of radical listening: the electric cello and the analog synthesizer trace fragile lines, tensions, and resonances, shaping a constantly shifting sonic landscape where memory and presence take form through sound.
Alessandro Ciccarelli:
Organizer of sounds, brass player, and electronic musician. Over the years, he has performed in various musical settings, spanning across genres, in both small and large ensembles, performing in Italy and abroad. In recent years, he has focused his research primarily on open and aleatoric forms, improvisation in electronic and electroacoustic music.
He carries out electronic experimentation in solo with the nom de plume Elnath Project.
He has also shared and shares paths with Giovanni Di Cosimo, Theo Jörgensmann, Alessandro Sbordoni, Massimiliano Viel, Gabby Fluke-Mogul, Dirar Kalash, Barbara De Dominicis, Oshima Koshiro, Damāvand, Tetsuroh Konishi, Milena Punzi Anfossi and many other known and less known reckless experimenters of sound.
Milena Punzi Anfossi:
Dedicated to concert activity since she was very young, she has played in chamber groups in musical seasons and international festivals in Croatia, France, Spain, Belgium, Slovenia, China and Tasmania and collaborated with chamber and symphonic groups with names such as Ennio Morricone and the director Nanni Moretti.
She has deepened the study of the classical and romantic repertoire with historical instruments and has recently approached the world of electronic music and experimentation. She collaborated with Nicolas Jaar, Francesco Giomi, Silvia Bolognesi, Kmru, Walter Forestiere, Simone Grande, Tobia Bondesan, Ludovica Manzo, Vipera, Alberto Brutti, Alessandro Ciccarelli and other radical experimenters.
Digital release on the 26th of June 2026.
Track listing:
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