Sonologyst – Unexplained Sounds (Album – Unexplained Sounds Group)
Genre/Influences: Experimental, soundscape.
Format: Digital, CD, Cassette.
Background/Info: “Unexplained Sounds” is an essential work in the discography of Sonologyst. Raffaele Pezzella originally released the album in 2014, the title of the album becoming the name of the label set up by the artist. Later on the album has been re-released on cassette format and now gets a new edit on CD featuring two extra songs.
Content: It’s very important to know the concept of the work, which is indicated by the title. This album appears to be a kind of sonic documentary featuring ‘unexplained sounds’; noises we all can notice when simply listening to the sky, or the depths etc. The work therefore reveals numerous field recordings featuring samplings from the NASA archive.
This is not about music and songs properly speaking, but a collection of noises, which sometimes create a certain atmosphere.
+ + + : More than ever, Sonologyst reveals its truly face at this work. This is an album getting us back to early experiments in music and I especially recommend this work for fans of the defunct Staalplaat and Dorobo labels. If you remember the work of Alan Lamb, Randy Greif, Roel Meelkop ao you for sure gone like this work. It’s a documentary, an assembly of noises creating an obscure soundscape which especially emerges at “Unknown Sound In Finland” and “Andromeda”.
– – – : This work is totally experimental and definitely suited for a very restricted number of fine tasters.
Conclusion: We sometimes forget there are so many genres and sub-genres in music. Sonologyst is hard to label as one particular music style –except experimental or avant-garde, but that’s probably also a style or at least a different approach in dealing with music.
Best songs: “Unknown Sound In Finland”, “Andromeda”.
Rate: (7).
Artist: www.facebook.com/sonologyst
Label: www.facebook.com/unexplainedsoundsgroup
About Sonologyst
Sonologyst is the solo project of Italian artist Raffaele Pezzella, who also runs the Unexplained Sounds Group label, set up in 2015 to document experimental, industrial and dark-ambient underground scenes worldwide through its “Survey” and Sound Mapping Project compilation series. Pezzella discussed that curatorial work in a Side-Line Click Interview. Sonologyst continued releasing music on Cold Spring in the years since, including “Interdimensional” (2022) and “Shortwave Spectrum” (2023), a work exploring clandestine number stations.
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I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
