NIMH:
The Impossible Days (CD 2005 - Amplexus - Second Edition)
Giuseppe Verticchio is easily one of the most prolific
and interesting names in the Italian ambient-electronic underground,
and it's about time he got the attention he deserves from labels
and public. "The impossible days" is a mature, inspired
cd combining the best characteristics of works like "Line
of Fire" and "Frozen" but taking them one step
ahead. Far from being repetitive, "The impossible days"
seems to take the deep synth layers and field recordings from
"Line of Fire" to a different plan; I'd say this is
more meditative and indirect in its approach, though not less
effective. Actually, these compositions gain strength from their
rarefaction, like the brilliant incipit "Lost signals",
with its minimal, hypnotic pulses, definitely my fave track here.
If I had to mention some akin artists, I'd say the ritual ambient
of Steve Roach, Vidna Obmana and Robert Rich at their best has
left its mark here; but bear in mind Verticchio's sound easily
stand on its own. Really worth checking out, like every other
releases of Nimh's.
- Eugenio Maggi - Chaindlk
This album reveals Giuseppe Verticchio’s incredible capacity
to introduce us into an unique world of “concrete”
sounds that sublimate the common nature. All compositions are
means of communication. Concrete noises and electronic fequences
are totally intertwined in an homogeneous spectral process. “Lost
signals” features a minimal, obsessional synthesised micro-signal,
endlessely repeated. It is progressively covered by moving, spherical
electronic sequences, a cascade of natural sounds treated in studio.
A brainey, lysergic ambience for hypno-like electronics and effects.
“The Impossible day” is a short cinematic interlude
for manipulated sounds, sustained by rotative buzzing synthesized
sounds, discreet repetitive metallic projections. A real menacing
sci-fi atmosphere. “Communicating rooms” starts once
again with a bunch of evocative, familiar sounds, systematically
re-worked with reasonaing electronic noises in order to create
some dreamy-like / nightmarish mentalscapes. In “Back to
Teheran”, the subjective cinema for the ears carries on
with an intense orchestration of concrete sounds taken from everyday
life, ordinary rituals and public transports. The electronic treatments
add an aura of mystery. It invites the listener to open his senses
to new kind of percpetion and interpretation. The album ends with
the relaxing, cloudy & floating “The final challenge”.
Certainly among the most environnemental, cinematic albums from
Nimh. “The Impossible Day” is a very personal work,
a real immersive trip throw colourful sounds. It’s indispensable
to give several listenings to appreciate all the facets &
metaphoric visual expressions. For curious prog (electro) heads!
- Philippe Blache - Progarchives
Come non rimanere incantati davanti al dissolvente astrattismo
della copertina, con quelle increspature filiformi immerse in
pastorali ingorghi di luce dalle cangianti tonalità purpuree,
lasciapassare elettromagnetico per questi "giorni impossibili"?
L'autore è Nimh (alias Giuseppe Verticchio), pulsante artista
elettronico romano, che si addentra in maniera singolare nella
semantica membranosa della sperimentazione più surreale
e logaritmica. Si possono citare le frequenze protofoniche di
"Lost Signals" (propaggine drenante del subglaciale
"Frozen", uscito nel 2002 per la AFE), la fobica ciclicità
di "The Impossible Day", l'escoriazione industriale
di "Communicating Rooms", ed i quasi dieci minuti di
immolazione modulatoria di "Back To Teheran" (con viscerali
reminescenze di Vittorio Gelmetti, flagellante sperimentatore
dei primi anni sessanta). Il lavoro si chiude in maniera fluorescente
con l'affannoso sincretismo di "Undefined Perceptions"
e la spirituale immobilità di "The Final Challenge",
e Nimh (sta per 'nichel-metilidrato') si afferma quale cristallino
alchimista nell'intransigente panorama 'sotteraneo' nazionale,
e non solo...
- Maurizio Bianchi - IDBox
Inizialmente autoprodotto in poche copie vede finalmente la luce
in edizione ufficiale per Amplexus, "The Impossible Days"
di Nimh, l'alias che si è dato il bravo Giuseppe Verticchio.
Nodo cruciale, "Back to Teheran", la quarta traccia
che ben racchiude l'atmosfera di un disco teso e difficile, oltre
la cold ambient del pur bellissimo "Frozen". Musica
tutt'altro che consolatoria, densa dei presagi di questi giorni
impossibili, come il titolo ben sottolinea. Tra elettroniche urticanti
e field recordings, segnali perduti e percezioni indefinite, Nimh
disegna ancora una volta una mappa sonora senza compromessi.
- Gino Dal Soler - Blow Up
The Impossible Days is a set of very deep and very dark minimalism
from Giuseppe Verticchio, a.k.a. Nimh. from a bass drone, Giuseppe
builds vast atmospheres with effects, processes and experimental
sounds. He combines sci-fi timbres and organic textures to generate
massive soundscapes. He enhances them with bizarre and bombastic
samples and hints of ethnic ambience. This diverse collection
of eclectic compositions is rare and worthy.
- Jim Brenholts -
Il cuore avventuroso di Nimh (al secolo Giuseppe Verticchio)
batte dalle parti dell'ambient-noise di scuola Lustmord. Il suo
“The Impossibile Days” rimanda ai cerimoniali esoterici
del musicista-scienziato attraverso lo stile medianico delle sue
creazioni elettroniche. Un tessitore di atmosfere che eredita
lo spirito della cosmic-music più scura e viscerale. Varcare
i cancelli di “The Impossibile Days” significa calarsi
nel regno delle ombre e dei rumori, assistere all'ultimo atto
del ciclo umano in un incubo di suggestioni sospese sul ciglio
del precipizio.
- Aldo Chimenti - Rockerilla
Spectral voices, monochromatic recordings of people speaking,
echo their concerns here and there. Laid over whole cloth of gritty,
echoing ambient. Italian project Nimh play with electric hums,
pulsations, loops and intense environmental ambient. Lots of location
recordings transformed, mutated, looped, cycling around under
a very dense overlay of the aforementioned electric tones and
pulsations. This disc seems to crystalize its sound only at about
the last third of the disc, before that, you seem to be lost,
trying to find your way through a confusing, unfriendly cityscape,
haunted by voices. It's difficult, no telling what happens next,
you can't get a handhold. Then you break into a bright clearing,
and for the last three tracks or thirty minutes, the hums and
location pieces reveal themselves as natural occurrances, where
you were going all along. The disc closes on a vibrant building
of light, and a dismantling of the mechanical fetters that intruded
before. Their sounds only here and there as chains and pulleys
are broken and cast aside. It's always hard to guess what a sound
artist is trying to "say", if anything at all. Most
of it is open to the listeners imagination I guess. For me, I
found a paranoia and fear surrounding the mechanical, the utility.
A transcendence into the next step, ironically through enduring
a tyranny of machines. And sometimes this did just seem to be
a chronicle of things that never happened, snapshots in a sound
journal of truly impossible days.
- Manifold Records
|