- There are few places in Milan where electronic music is presented away from its dance floor-related context, attracting an audience from outside of the club scene. One of the few promoters of seated electronic music concerts is Teatro Franco Parenti, a venue that's been one of the city's cultural epicenters for almost five decades. This made it an ideal environment for Visible Cloaks' edgy audiovisual performance on Tuesday. For the first time in Milan, the Portland-based duo presented their debut LP, Reassemblage, a record inspired by a documentary of the same name by the Vietnamese filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha. The night was curated by Electropark Exchanges, a collective that, since launching in 2012, has invited international artists such as Tim Hecker, Marie Davidson and Egyptrixx to Teatro Franco Parenti.
By 9 PM, a few people had already arrived, chatting and smoking spliffs under the theatre's soft neon sign. The crowd slowly moved inside the theatre, taking their time to grab a drink or a bite on the way. Most of the red seats were taken, and warm lights coming from old glass chandeliers illuminated the room. "Man, this is gonna be so trippy," my neighbour said to me. "I saw them playing at Unsound on acid and wowww."
Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile's silhouettes loomed in front of a big projection screen, soaking everybody in Brenna Murphy's kaleidoscopic virtual landscapes and textures, evoking forms of ancient civilizations and Bruno Ernst illustrations. These visuals turned Reassemblage into a fully immersive experience. Musically, I couldn't help but draw links with Italian minimalists such as Roberto Mazza, Raul Lovisoni and Roberto Musci & Giovanni Venosta. (Doran and Carlile told me after the show that they have a deep interest in the Italian avant-garde scene.) I totally lost myself in their unique blend of futuristic digital tonalities and iconic sounds of the past.
As soon as the show was over, the audience burst into a long round of applause, asking for an encore. After a few minutes, Doran and Carlile returned onstage: "Our live set is done, but we'll just do some improvisation." (They told me later that it was the first time they'd done an encore.) It was exciting to see such sincere involvement from both the audience and the artists. For me, it was further proof that Milan is becoming a key European city for electronic music.
Photo credit /
Francesco Margaroli