Every once in a while - during these last few years - I get to stay a few days in Liguria, a region that I love very much, during holidays or times when I do not have to work (I work as a graphic designer in Cremona, the city where I was born and live). Near the house where we stay there is an impressive place called San Fruttuoso Abbey (very close to Camogli and Portofino), which as well as being the residence of the Doria and a catholic Abbey, was also a hideout for pirates!
The place is still reachable only by boat or through a long path in the woods, but I must say that to swim in the sea of that small harbour really worth it!
I visited this place at least three times, and the thing that has always struck me, even more than the beautiful sea, is the atmosphere of the inside of the abbey (I’m not a Christian then is not a religious issue), especially if visited in a season where there are no tourists or bathers outside.
On one of these occasions I had bought the umpteenth music box from a vendor outside the church (since I incorporate them very often within my music I'm always looking for a new one).
Then, once we were on the balconies of the abbey, my oldest (at that time four years old) daughter Viola began to play the music box very slowly and it felt so good that, in the absence of professional equipment, I began to record everything with my iphone.
Once back home I arranged this raw recordings in a sampler and I used that as a starting point for a series of improvisations with the simple aid of looper + ring mod + fuzz pedals.
Nicola Fornasari, Cremona, Italy.
Mastered by Jason Corder.

A Quiet Removal - Xu - Tiny Portraits

Ambient music enthusiast and vinyl collector. I mix what i hear.

A Flaming Pines project:

Tiny Portraits: 

Small renderings of place in memory and sound. 

Sound and place are two terms often thrown together, but what actually connects the two? Sure places sound differently, or may shape the sounds that enter them in particular ways but in what ways is sound actually able to capture and convey place? Is place something to be captured at all? 

In Listening to Noise and Silence, Salomé Voegelin talks of soundscape compositions occupying a site 'between preservation and invention' – an attempt by the composer or field recordist to retain the essence of a site inevitability results via the processes of recording, composition and listening in the creation of somewhere new. 

Tiny Portraits asks each participant to dwell on these connections and disconnections between sound and place, representation and invention by starting somewhere small, somewhere overlooked or obscure, and to interrogate this site using sound. 

In listening to these pieces we ask you to bring only some stillness and imagination, as together we create new places, connections and silences out of these traces of forgotten and hidden sites. 

To visit the Tiny Portraits map by Arash Akbari visit: 
http://www.flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/

Credits: 
Tiny Portraits is conceived and curated by Kate Carr and is distributed via the record label Flaming Pines. 
Website design and programming by Arash Akbari 
All pieces by listed artists. 
All artwork by Kate Carr 
Mastering by Taylor Deupree at 12k Mastering. 

If you would like to pitch a portrait for this project contact: flaming.pines@gmail.com

A musical narrative visible to the minds eye.

Soon: Hiraeth by tarxun and Siavash Hakim out Nov 5
Latest:
Oblique by Corder & Yantis out Sept 17
Sounds of Mmabolela - Nikki Sheth - out Sept 3
The Yearning - Liz Helman
A Long Wait - Paula García Stone

Xu is my solo project. I'm also part of: Xu(e), That Which is Not, La Petite Vague, Twyxu, Zero Wait enSemble.
My works have been released on Fluid, Eilean, Whitelabrecs, Krysalisound, Flaming Pines, Rottenman Editions, Rohs! / Lontano, Twice Removed, Cathedral Transmissions, Triple Moon, Thirsty Leaves Music, Audio Gourmet, Tessellate, Haze, Many Feet Under, Subterranean Tide and Laverna.