Strongly Imploded

Blow Up:
Twilight Of Broken Machines Review [ BU#170/171 ]
Freefall Review [ BU#152 ]
Why Use A Proxy? Review [ BU#137 ]


Vital Weekly:
Twilight Of Broken Machines Review [ #815 ]
Italy’s four piece Strongly Imploded had a release on Gruenrekorder before. The band has members from One Starving Day, Weltraum and A Spirale: F. Gregoretti (drums), M. Gabola (reeds), M. Argenziano (guitar) and SEC_ (synth and electronics). Here too we have a combination between free jazz (drums and reeds) and free noise (guitar and electronics). However where Dislocation is doing something that I think is a bit old fashioned, Strongly Imploded with their strongly added value of electronic sounds, brittle and sharp, add something quite nice to the existing chaos and mayhem of free improvisation. An excellent release by a band who’d one wish to see live. (Frans de Waard)

Freefall Review [ #740 ]
Although the label Gruenrekorder is mostly known for their releases dealing with field recordings, here they also present another side of the coin. Strongly Imploded is a four piece improvisation group from Italy and has members from One Starving Day, Weltraum and A Spirale: F. Gregoretti (drums), M. Gabola (reeds), M. Argenziano (guitar) and SEC_ (synth and electronics). With their background in improvised music from a louder edge, its no surprise to know that also Strongly Imploded sees a similar combination of noise, improvised music and free jazz. They have seven tracks here, no doubt the result of a direct to tape playing, but perhaps with some edits. The reeds of Gabola add a sort of strange jazz feel to some of the pieces, while the others seem more interested in playing a loud as possible, banging away on their instruments. Its music that leaves the listener quite tired after forty one minutes, and although I thought this was on of the better releases I heard from this particular circle of collaborators, I also think this is definitely the kind of music that is best enjoyed when heard live. (Frans de Waard)

Why Use A Proxy? Review [ #695 ]
A release from the Ikuisuus-label (Finland). Strongly Imploded is a group of four people who don't reveal their real names. They play reeds, guitar, drums, glockenspiel, electronics, synth and bells. They come from different musical backgrounds and decided to start Strongly Imploded as an laboratory for new musical experiments. And experiment is what they do. They recorded this CDR in 2008 in Napoli, Italy, so I suppose it is an italian combo. In their radical improvisations they mix sources of acoustic and electronic origin. In the quiet and open passages their music fails to attract attention. However in the extravert and loud parts of the improvisations they do. There are some very enjoyable cacaphonic and furious minutes to enjoy here. Also they know how to built up a piece of improvised music. They are relatively new in this business if you ask me, but eager to learn more, as can be deduced from their dedicated playing. (Dolf Mulder)


Foxy Digitalis:
Freefall Review [ link ]
Freefall is a four-piece from Italy specializing in improvised noise and free jazz. They use guitar, reeds and drums along with synth and electronic manipulations gives the eight tracks on “Strongly Imploded” a bite and occasional groove often missing from such outings.
With a slow buildup to a jazzy noise mash, using each in ways at once familiar and odd, “Inconspicuous insects and bawdy secrets” opens the set with a flourish. On “An improvised freefalling deconstruction over time,” there is furtive noise throughout, jerking to a halt unexpectedly, careening squealing guitar feedback, sarcastically lazy western harmonica riff in the background. “Plowing through the forest” features a disturbing, digestive groove, the sound of a saxophone choking on its own reed, or eating itself alive.
Songs like “Hesitant ham” or “Triumphant march without tattoo or direction” are more generic free jazz freakout: blaring and distorted horns that sound almost conservative in their keeping to recognizable Free tropes. The closer, though, “Illusionary antics with spiraling cyborgs,” is brilliant, a frantic tribal noise intro, that slowly dissolves into a sustained low hum, and an industrial fadeout to a piece that began like ritual music for cannibals.
Shamefully limited to only 50 copies and coming in a bulky tin cigarette case, “Strongly Imploded” will probably be more read about than heard. But Freefall deserves to be heard. Their chaos is fun and ferocious, and even with the occasional clunkers, they make daring and roaring music that is quite out and adventurous.
8/10 (Mike Wood)

III Review [ link ]
ka thud. out line how you want.
You will pay for freedom with wanton want collecting ear bloods stingy cacophony to sweet the sax growl with a real one. sliver the drums out the sedan down the stairs. hit the lights. hard err. force the electricity up up, yo. disasemble semblance. reticulate stereos specificity for fuzz and it’s ability to hold what it does. janked wires blank clumped clicks. Wet pig in a tub (in your heads) slaying you could’nt play. oughta wishy wash with power sand blast synth and feed back to the future. Somber off the towel whips sax back to glitch to glitch expousing jones on the skins. tub thubs. Saw the sax, didee see me? Clickedy on the wratchet power meaning. Are you still an idiot trouble maker? Ye guitar’d synchopated onion breath out back downstairs. Lovely clumsy what he said after biting into the onion and after a few more bites what they all were sayin. Long John has a long moustache and heavy handed light on the spots between thought conjure computerized studder, but no signature. Bleep the crashed lull. Whisper whispered tendrils in the milk. Flippant what you know that other kid’d say. 24 knives set to cut with the past catches crying horns gaining confidence in the cymbalic wind. A little huffy goes by, cards in the spokes. Crash on the couch. Hit matches, walk to lunch past the gas station and it’s hum, it’s whir. (John Collins McCormick)


Just Outside:
Freefall Review [ link ]
Yet another Italian trio, this time from Naples, with F. Gregoretti (drums), M. Gabola (reeds) and M. Argenziano (guitar, synth, electronics). After the claustrophobic feeling of Petrolio, the kind of scrabbling, old-timey (that is, reaching as far back as the 70s) approach heard herein feels open and, well, fun. Not that this sounds like a Bailey/Parker/Bennink trio--there's much more bottom, more oblique nods to metal and other rockish forms (perhaps even Last Exit)--but even at its darkest, there's a sense of the wide open. A severe grinding aspect is also often in play, the sounds seeming to be wrenched from the players' guts. If Caspar Brotzmann had a brother who hewed a bit more closely to his dad's ethos, he might be involved in a trio like this. Not my cuppa so much, but they do what they choose to do pretty well. (Brian Olewnick)


The Sound Projector:
Twilight Of Broken Machines Review [ link ]
Strongly Imploded are a loopy Italian quartet of players noted also here. On Twilight of Broken Machines (EH?58) they summon up an unholy cacophony with their unique live improv setup of guitars, saxophones, tape recorder, drums, and feedback. There’s a no-input setup to generate feedback, and a more complex feedback system which uses loudspeakers and drums in some ungodly fashion, as if devised by the bastard child of Max Neuhaus. Even Mario Gabola’s saxophone is made to feedback in some way. If this description gets your mouth watering in anticipation of an album full of loud dissonant squeals, you might be surprised at the degree to which these four young men manage to harness and control all the rampant feedback that was slithering around their basement performance space in Naples in 2010 and 2011. If they could pour it into jars and export it as a form of pickled jam, I’m sure they would. Midway between extreme free improv and harsh noise their music sits more or less, as fidgety as a schoolboy sent to a year below his normal grade, and bearing all the attendant resentment against authority you might expect from that scenario. Strongly Imploded flail and crash with frustration and raw anger as they create their percussion-heavy outbursts, throwing a controlled tantrum and wallowing in their own bitter puke. I always enjoy their surreal and contrived track titles, but even these seem to be dripping with attitude and sarcasm. How grotesque we have become, indeed. (Ed Pinsent)

Freefall Review [ link ]
The austerity of With Lumps presents me with a somewhat indigestible quandary, but I don’t have that exact same sensation with the improvised music of Strongly Imploded, the Italian team of Gregoretti (drums), Gabola (saxophones), Argenziano (guitar) and SEC_ (electronics), by which I mean their music is much more expressive and outspoken, even to the point of excess. While With Lumps ponder and manoeuvre, Strongly Imploded¹ bring the battle direct to your street corner, picking fights with the local toughs. I see this is the third release we’ve been sent, although Why Use a Proxy? clearly baffled me in 2009; the recent American release Twilight of Broken Machines seemed to work better for me, which is how I ended up revisiting this slightly overlooked album Freefall (GRUENREKORDER GR 073) which I see has been hanging fire since July 2010. Whereas before matters seemed a bit chaotic to me, here the mixed tones of woodwinds, electronics and guitar noise finally start to make musical sense, and at their best the quartet produce a tight bond of mixed sonorities that can be very pleasing, especially when underpinned by the drummer who seems to be providing most of the required subsonics with his bass drums. While the other three drone like angry oxen and bulls, the drummer turns everything into a high-speed Vespa ride through the streets where lives are at stake. I still wish the saxophone player would pull in his antlers once in a while and stop acting like the histrionic free-jazz honker with his obnoxious toots, but when the synth playing and gruff guitar feedback are at their strongest, they manage to smack Mr Saxman in the face quite effectively and he stands in the corner with a reddening face. A band should make their internecine strife work in their favour, and on these 2008-2009 basement studio dates, Strongly Imploded turn their inner implosions and personality clashes into virtues. Gotta love the contrived track titles too, almost like the titles or opening words to short stories. Who could resist a tale which begins with ‘Hesitant ham’? (Ed Pinsent)
1. A name which has added poignancy given their country’s current relationship with the Euro.


Aiding & Abetting:
Twilight Of Broken Machines Review [ link ]
Some Italian noise merchants who are apparently attempting a critique of an Italian book about either socialist economics or AIDS. I really can't make heads or tails of the liners, but the squalls are awesome. This is noise that actually tells a story (and not about economics or AIDS, to my ears). This storm surges.


Monsieur Délire:
Twilight Of Broken Machines Review [ link ]
Thanks go to microlabel eh? for allowing me to discover this Italian noise improvisation quartet. Electric guitar, drums, Revox/no-input mixing board, and sax/feedback. Five short tracks (4-7 minutes), powerful, punchy, brimming with life and strength. High-energy yet focused free improvising. I’m quite impressed, especially with “Bad boys who were born wrong,” where Strongly Imploded get everything right. (François Couture)


the one true dead angel:
Twilight Of Broken Machines Review [ link ]
The album title is certainly appropriate: on the first track, "Signs of Liberation for Wandering Souls," all the equipment at the band's disposal sounds like it's breaking down, along with the recording equipment and maybe even the room where the recording takes place. The band employs drums, electric guitar, sax, and a mix of tape and computer electronics to create the sound of a free (extremely free) improv band fighting their way through an ocean of malfunctioning equipment, and the resulting sound is every bit as unpredictable and chaotic as such a description suggests. Things get a bit less frantic on "That This Putrid Air Does Not Pollute Our Clean Faces," with spells of silence between the chaos and a moderately more subdued approach to noise pollution, although the sax bleats do sound unnervingly like a person undergoing serious gastronomic distress and the track's sheer randomness is every bit a match for the opener. The remaining four tracks are every bit as eccentric and noise-laden as the first two, with a consistently willful defiance implicit in their struggle to avoid sounding "normal" at all costs. As with most Eh? releases, this is strictly for people in love with the sound of sound; come to this expecting structure, melody, or conventional thinking and you will be sorely disappointed, but if you're looking for a cacophonous display of free will through the joy of beating and bleating, well, this just might be your ticket out of Squaresville. (RKF)


Terrascopic Rumbles:
Why Use A Proxy? Review [ January 2010 ]
“why use a proxy?” is the second release from the Italian band Strongly Imploded, a quartet of sax, guitar, electronics and drums. The cover, tracks titles and design of the album are quite robot-ish and the group members uses alias like client asp 1, client asp 2, client osd and client sec_. Anyone interested in their real names have to go to their myspace site for further information. But, don’t bother, it’s not interesting who is who or who’s doing what. This is a true collective release, filled with free expression, instruments in search of a united language to use, sounds and music together in an attractive brew. The players seem to use more time to listen to each others playing than their own and then suddenly it all explodes in volcanic expressions. It’s non-rhythmic, but with a sensual tension and energy not too often heard nowadays. Noise, electro-acoustic moments and free improvisations melt in a happy marriage. This is the uplifting reward for being a reviewer. (Simon Lewis and Stefan Ek)


Kathodik:
Twilight Of Broken Machines Review [ link ]
O anche, Oddly Imploded e Grizzly Imploded.
Cambian alcuni attori, ma il risultato non muta.
Impro free rock, catastrofico e metropolitano.
Libero, feroce, matematico e da tempo svezzato.
Dove interscambiabili son gli stati di attesa e rilascio.
Facce della stessa medaglia.
Straziate memorie Ayler, la guerra lampo dei Borbetomagus, l'impossibile fatto carne dei This Heat (concettualmente, la stessa finestra, dentro/fuori, fuori/dentro).
Ma anche, le traballanti impalcature dei Voice Crack, le verticalità dei Sightings, l'urto degli Aufgehoben.
Umidità e noia.
Letteraria, crudele reazione.
Con un palco, senza palco.
Disoccupazione, nulla.
La perdita di tempo che il nulla comporta.
Il fare, la sua esposizione ad ogni ben di Dio di tossina, gratuita e non richiesta.
Non hai altro, cazzo vuoi!
Te; li vuoi 800/700/600/500 euri al mese?
Li vuoi?
Perché ne trovo altri mille come te, anche a molto meno.
Spingi la carretta.
Sfiancati, vai in motorino con tutta la famiglia sul sellino.
Brama qualcosa che non sai, poi muori.
Di nuovo, cazzo vuoi?
Non è semplice brutismo.
Non c'entra nulla, semplificarlo in noise.
Nulla è casuale.
O almeno, loro, sanno dove andare.
Sbattere contro un muro, ancora ed ancora.
Prima o poi, qualcosa accadrà.
Al muro o alla testa.
Radical Disruption Of The Present ed Astute Prophets Of False Truth, letteralmente, raggelano.
Da Napoli, chitarra, batteria, un Revox, no-input feedback, laptop, sax ed i suoi feedback, sfasciume elettronico.
Maurizio Argenziano, Francesco Gregoretti, SEC_, Mario Gabola.
Nulla è casuale, e nel frattempo, la pelle avvizzisce.
Si chiama vita sapete?
(Marco Carcasi)


Sodapop:
Why Use A Proxy? Review [ link ]
Per quanto non ci sia alcuna specifica all’interno del cd se non delle sigle, guardando sulla loro pagina myspace ho visto che gli Strongly Imploded sono Francesco Gregoretti (batteria) dei One Starving Day (pare un disco in uscita su Beta-lactam Ring), Maurizio Agenziano (chitarra) e Mario Gabola (sax) degli A Spirale e SEC_ (synth) dei Weltraum.
Se abbiamo già visto gli ultimi tre coinvolti a più riprese in diversi lavori, con l’aggiunta di un batterista le cose cambiano anche se non troppo, soprattutto rispetto ad Aspec(t), si tratta sempre più di free-freak-noise-jazz-core, anche se con l’aggiunta di una batteria invece che aumentare il grado di entropia a quanto pare tutto viene tenuto leggermente più imbrigliato. Inevitabile accostare la musica a cose più jazz-core o free, ma al di là di folate sempre ben calibrate e asciutte, quel tanto che basta per non farle apparire neppure casuali, il disco è meno frastagliato di altri progetti che vede coinvolti questi musicisti, infatti nonostante le variazioni di dinamica e di atmosfera le tracce sembrano avere più forma. In un certo senso sono tentato persino di dire che si tratti di un disco fortemente influenzato dalla musica free dei tardi anni Settanta e credo che sia anche vero, ma se questo vi fa pensare a del passatismo dimenticatelo perché è quell’essere stile Settanta che si sente in moltissima sperimentazione e free americano che sta facendo scuola. (Andrea Ferraris)