Secret Thirteen Mix 111 - Mace.

The author of the mix is Enrico Cesaro, better known as Mace., an Italian electronic music producer and sound designer based in Padova. After a long time studies of classical piano, Cesaro started concentrating on more experimental production based on a strong focus to digital composing methods. In his works Cesaro is trying to portray his own irrational reality, as his inspirations flow from his memories and personal tastes; dreams, movies and documentaries, obscure and mysterious landscapes. The project is also dedicated to reflect the current global environment, political and social ideas and happenings. Cesaro’s sound stands on improvisational music techniques, he carefully constructs innovative effect modulations and prefers to merge various cuts and loops (voices, guitars, noises etc.) together to create his own dark and profound world of sounds. Even started in 2013, Cesaro has released a couple of critically acclaimed records on such promising labels as Eclipsemusic and Further Records, and seems that it is only just a beginning. A new record titled “Homemade Low Confidence” is waiting to be released on Attic Music. Next to his personal creations, Cesaro also has recorded some memorable and conceptual mixes for Smoke Machine and do/nothing podcast series and that obviously gained him a much wider recognition in the so called ‘underground’ scene.

“Secret Thirteen Mix 111” is a refined and euphonious audio voyage through contrasting musical horizons, utopian life visions and true beauty and phenomenas of the human soul. According to the author, the main idea of the mix is to maintain and to expand Arte Povera movement ideas that were introduced in Italy during the period of upheaval at the end of the 1960s. It is like a delicate author’s manifest against the economic and political instability through music as art. While combining fragments of conceptual, minimalism and improvisational music, Cesaro goes against commercialization and also tries to reveal the essential meaning of happiness, as in his opinion it could be achieved by a natural beauty and true emotions, not just only by mass media’s or any law’s dictated life scenario. Cesaro’s harmonious, accurate, patient and lightly progressive merging manner of kaleidoscopic sound structures and atmospheric forms step by step completes his primary idea.

The whole mix consists of 20 lasting and theatrical records released between 1967 and 2014. Even Mace. is combining almost forgotten pieces by such prominent artists as NON , Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, Caroline K, Labradford with nowadays electronic music production from such luminaries as Kreng, Felix Kubin, Scorn, Valerio Tricoli & Thomas Ankersmit, he manages to find a peaceful balance and connection between them, diverse and original music becomes as a one sustained wholeness. By enriching the whole background with cuts from his own music catalog and audio excerpts from film soundtracks he shrouds his work with some more of authenticity and unexpectedness. The fundamental of the mix holds on frequently evolving and slightly changing obscure beat patterns, sensuous and melancholic ambiance, organic sound samples and dreamy, yet mysterious mood. It is like a Giovanni Anselmo’s contemporary sculpture “Senza Titolo” . The balance between sound weight, gravity and magnetism inside Mace.’s mix is quite similar to Anselmo’s explorations in sculpture. Feels like these two different generation artists were equally inspired by observation of natural events and energies and searching for a relationship between abstract categories of thoughts, such as general and particular, finite and infinite, culture and nature, the passing of historical time and routine of experience and abstraction of philosophical principles.

Show Playlist

01. Mario Schifano - Umano Non Umano [1972] (excerpt from film)
02. NON - Arka [Mute, 2002]
03. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
- In Aria [Boring Machines, 2012]
04. Caroline K - The Happening World [Klanggalerie, 2010/1967]
05. Felix Kubin & Ensemble Intégrales - Uncanny Valley [Dekorder, 2010]
06. Mace. - Untitled Loop
07. Valerio Tricoli / Thomas Ankersmit - Hunt [Pan, 2011]
08. Father Murphy - Let The Wrong Rise With You
[Boring Machines/Aagoo Records, 2014]
09. Mihály Vig - Öreg [1G Records, 2009]
10. Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza - Schema 1
[Cramps Records, Emi Music Italy, 1998/1976]
11. Franco Battiato - Propiedad Prohibida [Artis Records, 1992/1974]
12. Saltland - Golden Alley [Constellation, 2013]
13. 400ppm - Non Nocere [Avian, 2013]
14. Scorn - Trondheim Gavle [Scorn Recordings, 1995]
15. Kreng - SlaaplieDJe [Miasmah, 2009]
16. Saltland - I Thought It Was Us [Constellation, 2013]
17. Labradford - WR [Kranky, 1997]
18. Koenraad Ecker - Oran (Part 2) [Digitalis Recordings, 2014]
19. Commodity Place - Soils [Electronique.it, 2012]
20. Brice salek - Prehistoric Music [Assembly Field, 2013]
21. Excerpt from Inuit Throat Music - Qiarvaa (from UBUWEB)

More about Mace.: Facebook - Soundcloud