Released on Populista
Composition by Alvin Lucier / Rinus van Alebeek
Concept and recordings by Michal Libera and Rinus van Alebeek
Voices by Michal Libera, Rinus van Alebeek and Barbara Eramo
Text overwritten in Calabrian villages on top of Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities"

The whole idea came from reading Italo Calvino's „Invisible Cities” while travelling among unknown cities of Calabria. The similarities have been striking. The book became a guide, Kublai Khan – an emperor of the land in the south of Italy and the idea – irrepresible urge to actually perform this similiarity. The original text by Calvino was overwritten with some information – including the names of towns – distorted, filtered and overdubbed by its local reflections. Armed with it, Rinus van Alebeek and Michał Libera set out for a dozen of excursions into Calabrian towns to drink coffee, recite, talk, read, listen, perform, play, record, play back... or: blow, bow, rub, explode, scrape, walk, ignore, talk, screw, dance, whistle, which are all suggestions of Alvin Lucier to make large and small resonant environments sound. The material recorded during these attempts to make invisible cities of Calabria sound was then composed by Rinus van Alebeek to form a road-audio-book.

Alvin Lucier Chambers [excerpt]

Sociologist working in sound and music field since 2003, recently involved mostly in producing and staging sound essays and other experimental forms of radio art and opera which brought him to collaborate with Martin Küchen, Pete Simonelli, Ralf Meinz, Komuna// Warszawa, Hilary Jeffery, Apartment House and others; producer of conceptual pop label Populista dedicated to mis- and over- interpretation of music as well as series of reinterpretations of music made in Polish Radio Experimental Studio (Bôłt Records); curator of various concerts, festivals and anti-festivals and music programs for exhibitons; member of art group called „Grupa Budapeszt”.