Paolo L. Bandera + Mark Solotroff "Geological Plots And Subway Rifts" CD

New four-panel digipak CD version of previously digital-only album

Paolo and I discussed this collaboration when Paolo was last in Chicago, in November 2019. He proposed creating a set of songs to go with a text that he was thinking about and that I might add images to. During this period of "shelter in place" during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been communicating on a daily basis and we certainly had the time to get to work on the music and the companion book. It turns out that Paolo wrote a short science fiction story and I was quickly able to visualize the type of images that I would source and manipulate to go with his text. For the music, Paolo sent me eight synth tracks that he wanted me to react to. His tracks seemed like "lead" tracks to me, so I created eight tracks that I thought would function more as "foundations" for each song. Paolo executed the first mix and I then did some additional processing and editing. This process was very different for us, compared to when we sent cassette tapes back and forth through the mail in 1996 to create our four-cassette box set, "Excellent Manipulation Of Distorted Tape Death," but the spirit of working together felt the same. Just faster! And maybe it seemed a bit "heavier," especially as Milan and the rest of Northern Italy was suffering such great loss during the time we were working on this together.
-Mark Solotroff, April 12, 2020

Released April 13, 2020
Music: Paolo L. Bandera + Mark Solotroff
Text: Paolo L. Bandera
Image Manipulation + Design: Mark Solotroff
Conceptualized, Recorded + Assembled in Milano + Chicago, 2019 – 2020

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