XX17: Silvia Costa/Claudio Rocchetti - KEYHOLE MOUTH - excerpts

Silvia Costa/Claudio Rocchetti - KEYHOLE MOUTH
LP on Xing (XONG collection XX17) out March 2025, order at www.soundohm.com/product/keyhole-mouth and at www.lespressesdureel.com/EN/ouvrage.p…11914&menu=2
Collector's edition available at www.soundohm.com/product/keyhole-mouth-art and at shop.flash---art.it/products/silvia…i-keyhole-mouth

*

Xing presents the new LP Keyhole Mouth by Silvia Costa and Claudio Rocchetti, seventeenth release of XONG collection - artist records.

Keyhole Mouth is the second collaboration, after Midnight Snack, between performer Silvia Costa and musician Claudio Rocchetti. Surrounded by objects and materials of different origins found by chance and arranged like sets, triggers for extemporaneous and fugitive narratives, Silvia Costa acted in the solitude and modesty of locked rooms, creating a series of unseen gestures and of which only a sonic memory remains. Barely audible excerpts of words, thoughts jotted down on a mental page, already forgotten and confused, mingle with the sound trails of actions, movements, steps, in a material and affective relationship with the most common objects.
A lighter, a rock, a newspaper. A chair, a pair of shoes, scissors.
Still lifes or enigmas to be deciphered. Claudio Rocchetti's elaboration of these fragile and wild sounds gave rise to a concrete music, marked by compositional strategies that are based on the use of various sounds, vocalized, shouted, breathed, beaten, rubbed and recorded. Frequencies and dust from another world, to be heard without being heard, to be spied with the ears instead of the eyes, through the keyhole, without disturbing. This Keyhole is the crack, the mouth from which the sound comes. It is like a region of the space-time, isolated from the rest of the universe, that attracts you towards a dark and obscure centre where little is seen, much is imagined in listening.

Silvia Costa is an Italian artist, director and performer. Since 2007 she's developed a visual and poetic theater nourished by a deep reflection on images. Alternating roles as author, director, performer or set designer, this protean artist crosses different aesthetic fields in a personal exploration of Theatre. She has created theatre works, performances, installations and multimedia projects. Recent projects have definitely expanded to the musical and operatic world with important collaborations. In 2022 she was awarded the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
www.silvia-costa.com

Claudio Rocchetti is a musician and composer whose research is mainly focused around concrete pastiches as the result of hardware live manipulation, turntable feedbacks as well as various recorded sources and objects. The work of Claudio Rocchetti is a deep plunge into thick sound, investigating its innermost workings. Using a variety of devices such as turntables, audio cassettes, samplers, radios, and microphones, often incorporating other objects and traditional instruments, Rocchetti builds compelling structures that employ sound as sheer matter, mass, and impact. The tarry, mesmerizing hues that characterize his ‘music objects’ are grounded in layers of sound detritus. From techno rhythms to slow melodies, edgy constructions to samples of choirs and strings, Rocchetti builds layered structures of elusive elements whose sources are often hidden, and enacts a mirror play which may cause dizziness.
www.claudiorocchetti.com

*

Concrete sounds and voice S. Costa; Sound processing, electronics and editing C. Rocchetti; Recorded by D. Hart at PULP ARTS; Master G. Ielasi; Cover photo by S. Costa; Artwork by Xing; Printed by handle with care.
Released in an edition of 150 copies including collector's edition of 25 copies accompanied by a keyhole of European and North American manufacture, from the 17th century onwards, with the application of an original pen on canvas drawing by S. Costa.