DR. BLOWFIN’S ARCHIVE

The name of each track, a diagnosis, is associated to the appropriate therapy in parentheses. In seven experimental acts Marco Bonini crosses the boundaries of the world of dreams. His music comes from the dark recesses of sleep and flows iridescent and contemplative. As treatment for his type of hypnagogic paralysis, the Roman guitarist built up a concept album about own sleep disorders, where field recordings, glitch and crackle fragments are bound together in a sonic stream of consciousness. Between a combined laptop and guitar use, Ubik seems to be driven by a spiritual fervor in order to explore the depths of electronic pulses and analog reverbs, assembled with taste.

SHANE WOOLMAN / THE WIRE

There’s a tinge of Romantic posture to the debut of Rome guitarist Marco Bonini, down to the sleevenotes that claim it was “recorded… during the night, in complete solitude.” Enshrouding night is the condition of heightened or revelatory listening, from Keats’s nightingale to Nietzsche’s demon of eternal recurrence to Sinatra’s reveries In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning. Each track is named after a sleep disorder, but it’s only in the album’s second half that its webs of quiet processed electric guitar approaches the blue hour disorientation it promises. The effect is too often merely decorative. though from “Hypnic Jerk” onwards it opens up to the delirious play of sour-sweet digital noise, most effectively on “Bruxism”.

AURELIO CIANCIOTTA / NEURAL

Ubik is the moniker chosen by the Roman musician Marco Bonini, a guitarist and experimenter originally emanating out of the jazz tradition. Between March and August 2011, using only his instrument and a personal computer, he gave life to the compositions of Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Disorder. The scores were then recorded – in just one night – in complete solitude in his home studio, before being mixed with Fabio Perletta at the headquarters of Farmacia 901 in Roseto degli Abruzzi. The record is a very elegant and enjoyable production, melodic and vaguely post-rock, although there are glittering overlaps, abstract deconstructions and more digital elements present. “The idea of dedicating a record to sleeping disorders”, Bonini says, “hit my mind as an illumination when two tracks were already done and I was trying to find out their obscure sense.” Moving in this direction did not help to solve the symptoms: so nighttime composition through headphones became a kind of sleep treatment for Bonini. The compositional process has remained sensitive to the most minimal variations in tone and pattern overlap, elements that were kept ethereal throughout the scores. The fleeting nature of half-awake perceptions has been reflected in the similarly faint multiplication of audio content, noises and field recordings. All these elements have been subjected to many elaborations, so in many cases is it now impossible to trace the origins or development of a sound.

ANDREA PIRAN / CHAIN DLK

This new release from Farmacia901 is, according to the press release, dedicated to “sleeping disorders. Insomnia is the most common among the most known and clinically studied disorders. It consists in awakening only with the mind, while for some time the body remains asleep”. Musically speaking this is resolved with heavily processed guitar aiming to reach almost ethereal atmospheres.
The longest track “Irregular Sleep Wake (Tryptophan)” opens this release in a quiet way until the guitar take the scene with his delay above a glitchy beat. “Delayed Sleep Phase (Melatonin)” use sparse notes and carefully chosen effects while “Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (Light Therapy)” uses, instead, reverbs and resonances to depict the dreamy atmosphere of this album. “Hypnic Jerk (Zeitgeber)” is based on almost irregular rhythms while “Suprachiamastic Nucleus (Barbiturates)” is a drone acting as a canvas for the guitar to color. “Sleep Paralysis (Amitriptyline)” feature an hypnotic guitar loop below the small noises and the guitar notes. “Bruxism (Biofeedback) close this release in a fully restructured mode as guitar and effects are in a fully dialectical mode.
Instead of being a mere window dressing, the linear notes are a way to enter into the complex musical offer of this artist. In my opinion, this is one of the albums of the year. Recommended.

PAOLO BERTONI / BLOW UP MAGAZINE #174

Debutto decisamente interessante per Ubik, progetto di cui è titolare il romano Marco Bonini, è “Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Disorder”, assemblato elaborando una serie di solitarie improvvisazioni notturne, che hanno ispirato il titolo dell’album che tra l’altro per ogni disturbo del sonno che battezza i singoli pezzi suggeriscono un terapia. Dopo una introduzione dall’impronta marcatamente ambientale, in Irregular Sleep-Wake si sviluppa con efficace chiarezza quella che sarà generalmente la sostanza del disco, con delicati arpeggi di chitarra che, limpidi, rischiarano basi elettroniche spesso brumose e adornate di rugosi glitch. Il resto è in sintonia, tra i più aggrovigliati anfratti esplorati da Delayed Sleep Phase, la translucida Periodic Limb Movement Disorder, dai tratti lievi e sfuggenti ed in cui nella parte centrale sembra di avvertire deviazione in lande Pan American, le languide meditazioni che appaiono sottendere a Hypnic Jerk, i riverberi che trasportano in appropriate dimensioni di onirico dormiveglia di Suprachiamastic Nucleus, gli insistiti indugi tra tormento dell’ignoto e memoria della perdita di Sleep Paralysis, i filamenti nostalgici destinati a progressivamente diluirsi sino all’evaporazione nel tempestoso finale di Bruxism.

AURÉLIE SCOUARNEC / SILENT WEAPONS FOR QUITE WARS

Guitares lénifiantes sur dérèglement de rythme biologique, écumes de field recordings et de barbituriques. Un album sous perfusion de mélatonine, et de glitch thérapeutique.

Cet album ne pouvait pas trouver de place plus adéquate que sur Farmacia901, label italien aux allures de clinique pharmaceutique et tenu en partie par Fabio Perletta. Début 2012, Vir-Uz avait déjà sonné l’éboulement d’un terrain apocalyptique en proie aux vents de la désolation et de l’absence. Plaie béante où s’engouffraient les drones, bruissements granuleux et sonorités instables, cet album d’une densité agressive et magnétique était le travail conjoint de Maurizio Bianchi et d’Andrea Ferraris sous le nom de MB + ICS. Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Disorder, l’album de Ubik (Marco Bonini), change de rivage sonore, plus électronique, avec ses guitares émaillées de glitch.

Accueilli sans y prêter attention par beaucoup, redouté et guetté anxieusement par d’autres, le sommeil se retrouve parfois poignardé par des troubles insidieux aux airs de tortionnaires. Des démons qui, contrairement à ceux qu’ils ne laissent jamais totalement en paix et qu’ils habituent à une peur portant le goût acide de l’obsession, sont infatigables. En exposant et en décortiquant ainsi la pathologie, la musique de Marco Bonini s’érige comme l’instrument d’une thérapie bâtie sur ses propres douleurs. Il souffrirait en effet lui-même de l’un des troubles listés au fil des pistes.

L’artwork donne à voir une feuille scindée par une ligne introduisant un décalage, un déphasage, venant modifier l’équilibre. Précisément à l’image d’un dérèglement des cycles du sommeil. Et c’est ce que réussit à mimer l’album, au travers de ses répétitions sonores, de ses boucles de guitares entrecoupées de glitch, de cliquetis ou de distorsions. On frôle le déséquilibre, on se cogne à des infiltrations pernicieuses de l’électronique, à des crépitements, au bruit du dehors qui s’introduit sur Bruxism. Il en ressort un fabuleux travail sur les textures, et, curieusement, un aspect reposant. A l’image d’Irregular Sleep Wake, ou d’Hypnic Jerk, guitares et électronique se mêlent pour créer mélodies et rythmes apaisants. De quoi étouffer sous l’oreiller les spectres qui hantent notre sommeil.

Au plus près du trouble, pour mieux calquer le dérèglement. Ubik a enregistré son album chez lui, la nuit, dans une solitude complète. Circadian Rythm, Sleep Disorder surgit ainsi de ce moment où les heures se désorganisent, où les hallucinations grincent sous les planchers et où les muscles suffoquent dans leurs secousses. Il surgit d’une lutte personnelle, pour offrir une expérimentation sonore sous forme de remède universel.

BEACH SLOTH

Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Disorder succeeds where Oval’s reboot failed. Ubik uses guitar to great effect here. Glitches are employed for a sense of drama. Unlike Oval’s reboot, this has melodies, Ubik dwells in them. In general glitch can do a lot of good through its microscopic take on melody, rhythm, and texture. Often it is important to slow down the hyperactive tendencies of technology. Ubik understands this as he employs multiple strategies in these seven tracks.

For the opener Ubik brings together glitch rhythms, some beautiful swirling guitar, and random clattering noises. Eventually this comes together into a dash for the end. Giddiness prevails in ‘Melatonin’. The anxiousness comes out gloriously. At times it reminds me of ‘Punchdrunk Love’s’ oddly anxiety-inducing sense of giddy. ‘Light Therapy’ comes closest to a traditional rock sense. Here the guitar is mostly recognizable and allowed to soar, giving the track a sense of clarity. ‘Barbiturates’ takes Ubik’s ideas to their logical conclusion. Repetition plays a large part of the song’s power. Also the intersection between the downright violent electronic effects and the guitar is powerful. Towards the end it becomes classical in nature. Rock and classical battle it out on the song, with rock ultimately emerging triumphant.

Ubik understands the balance between the natural and the edited. Experimental music rarely feels this exciting. Some of the work reminds me of a more pastoral Fennesz, or of a less excitable Christopher Willts. A few of these songs manage to stay nearly stationary, unfolding slowly while others simply explode in a flurry of colorful tones and textures. This is a wild and alive release.

TO ELEVEN

The title gives this one away. Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Disorder is a concept album about sleep disorders and treatments. It’s not just an abstract concept through, Marco Bonini suffers from sleep paralysis and composed the music on this album as a form of treatment for his condition. A solid idea, it makes for a really fascinating record. At this point in my career as a review I’ve listened to a lot of experimental music and this is the most engaging album I’ve heard in the genre all year.

Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Disorder benefits from a lot of analog instrumentation. It gives the listener a grounded framework of familiar sounds, serving as a solid foundation for each track. Building off of that, Ubik’s choices in combining analog style instrumentation and electronic noise are perfect. It gets better and better with repeated plays and rewards anyone with a minimum investment in a quality pair of headphones with an even more remarkably deep listening experience. Also worth mentioning, is that I love the design of the album cover. This is beautiful stuff, don’t pass on this one.

Available on the Italian label Farmacia901 as a download or limited edition CD. Highly recommended.

ANDREA PREVIGNANO / RUMORE

Marco Bonini “soffre” di ipnagogia. In preda alla sindrome, la mente lavora ma il corpo è inerte come durante il sonno. In questa condizione di mezzo la percezione sonora dà vita a suggestioni auditive nuove. All’avvicendarsi del sonno e della veglia, ai disturbi e alle terapie correlate Bonini/Ubik ha dedicato Circadian Rhythm…, album per chitarra e laptop di grande fascino, dove gli armonici adamantini e i suoni ottenuti dagli stress dello strumento fluttuano su uno scenario di crackle, glitch, microdisturbi statici e field recordings casalinghi. Ci sono momenti postrock di grande appeal melodico (Hypnic Jerk/Zeitgeber) e di ostinazione rumorosa (l’attacco di Sleep Paralisis/Amitriptyline). Tra le migliori cose avant del momento.

ALDO CHIMENTI / ROCKERILLA

Il binomio musica-scienza medica è meno astruso di quanto non si creda. Ubik, nome d’arte del chitarrista Marco Bonini, ne offre un esempio in ambito di cronobiologia e ritmo circadiano. Ognuno dei 7 brani di Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Disorder tratta un caso clinico cui corrisponde una diagnosi e relativa terapia. Esempio pratico: l’Irregular Sleep-Wake della prima traccia abbina come cura il Tryptophan. Non meglio chiaro è se medesima funzione terapeutica sia applicabile ai temi sonori elaborati caso per caso. Così fose, utilità e diletto correrebbero di pari passo giacché trattasi di composizioni non prive di un loro feeling vibrazionale, a base di corde arpeggiate, rumori d’ambiente, ritmi e flussi di droni sinusoidali a frequenza alterna.

DAGHEISHA

Un concept album sui disordini del sonno che Marco Bonini ha composto come terapia per la sua forma di paralisi ipnagogica ma soprattutto sette frammenti di elettronica sperimentale che denotano una visione adulta in materia ambient. ‘Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Disorder’ si impone come una delle release più intelligenti uscite negli ultimi anni e non a caso è un’etichetta ispirata a distribuirla su una scena internazionale che guarda con interesse sempre maggiore al panorama italiano. Fabio Perletta e Gianclaudio Hashem Moniri hanno contribuito alla realizzazione di questo progetto che stigmatizza per l’ascoltatore allucinazioni notturne e field recordings trovando in ‘Delayed Sleep Phase’ e ‘Periodic Limb Movement Disorder’ i momenti di maggiore urgenza espressiva. A tratti l’utilizzo di strumentazione analogico è sospinto da un fervore quasi spirituale e non sarebbe strano arrivare alla conclusione che alcuni passaggi vantano una natura progressive. La realtà è che l’opera affascina il suo fruitore sin dal primo momento coinvolgendolo in maniera sorprendente per un genere che di solito fatica a mantenere alto il livello di attenzione. In futuro ci attendiamo colori diversi e tinte ancora più cupe.

RICHARD ALLEN / A CLOSER LISTEN

Music is often used as therapy, but after the fact; typically, the composition process has already been completed. Marco Bonini’s hypnagogia (sleep paralysis) inspired him to write this album, an attempt to battle sleep disorders while offering them a strange soundtrack. If the disorders were demons, they would likely be placated by this reflective and beguiling work. Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Disorder sounds like monsters and mechanisms turning on a pillow. The album is superior to its sleep-themed peers in that it retains its sharper edges instead of sloughing them off to create restfulness. Instead, it revels in its ability to prod and tumble, like nervous impulses or nagging thoughts, preventing the very state it yearns to reach.

One need not suffer from a sleep disorder to experience sleep deprivation; insomnia and noise pollution affect us all. When composing, Bonini attempted to drown the sounds of Rome by donning headphones. Still, in the quieter moments, the outside world managed to intrude. His tracks are a sonic diary of sleep struggle. At times, patterns repeat and lull, mimicking the healthier cycles of sleep; but then an unusual distraction – glitch, crunch, scratch – enters to unfasten the blanket. This inability to settle into a comfortable position grants the music a coppery allure, the tongue turning to distaste as the thoughts refuse to subside and the hallucinations begin. Nothing here is settled; nothing is complete. And yet, by delving deep into suggestions of cause and cure, Bonini mines something of worth. Like a witness creating a sketch of a culprit, he creates a sonic drawing of his own tormenter. If it’s not enough to soothe the artist, it’s at least enough to send a shock of recognition through others, who may feel isolated by their conditions.

The sound of the album is electronic, due to the processing of guitar through a bed of glitch. This lends the music a slightly unhinged quality, as source and sample draw close enough to be mistaken as twins. Layers of unusual noises haunt the outskirts like the chains of Dickens’ ghost. If there will be no sleep tonight, by God there will still be productivity. ”Irregular Sleep Wake” travels through phases of melody before entering the realm of abstraction. ”Delayed Sleep Phase” conjures images of a thumb piano played by a mischievous night gnome, who turns to stove pipes and cowbells after two minutes just to be sure no one will be getting any sleep. At the midpoint of “Suprachiamastic Nucleus”, static yowls like a feral cat on a splintered fence.

The personal nature of this work adds to its power, but even without the backstory, Bonini’s output as Ubik has never seemed so focused. The artist has turned a page in his discography; oddly, his enemy has become his muse.

GUILLERMO ESCUDERO / LOOP.CL

This is a new release on the label run by sound artist and graphic designer Fabio Perletta. Ubik is the project of Italian Marco Bonini who plays guitar, laptop, electronics and field recordings.
Disorders with sleep-wake rhythms that Bonini suffers are part of the ambient which unfolds in this record consisting in seven tracks that deploy through sophisticated experiments on the guitar based on digital processing.
The dreamlike quality that runs through the album, shows a blend of sounds and timbres mixed together, some of which are difficult to recognize its origin and mainly is because Bonini made improvisations on previously improvised sounds. At times when I hear the soft chords reminds me the work of Vinni Reilly.
Bonini’s music is to be carried away by the waves that spread in the atmosphere, shaping placid environments and conjuring up dreams.

FRANS DE WAARD / VITAL WEEKLY

A record about sleeping disorders: finally! I have been waiting for this, since I gave up smoking three weeks, two days, five hours and seven minutes ago and at the same time I also gave up a good night’s rest, it seems. I am sure it will pass (either by starting to smoke again, or simply in time to come). The musician who is Ubik, Marco Bonini, has hypnagogia, sleeping paralysis and during these states of half asleep, half awake he recorded these seven pieces of music on his guitar. At night, in Rome where he lives, with his headphones on. Several improvisations are layered together, so its no longer possible to know what has been done when and where. Computer processing plays an important part but not so much that we no longer hear the guitar. There are quite in a right balance I’d say. An interesting work, I think. While not entirely the ambient album I perhaps expected – music to sleep by maybe – but an interesting work of glitch based guitar music, that has its finer moods and textures, but also a bit of the angular tones and sine wave like sounds that one expects with the use of the computer. Never loud, never a lot, always carefully balanced. Just more than your regular ambient album I think, and certainly music that puts you in a good mood. Best enjoyed while being awake, I’d should add. You simply hear more.

MAURIZIO DI BATTISTA / THE SHIP MAGAZINE

Ubik è il viatico interiore del chitarista romano Marco Bonini. Già lo splendido booklet ci introduce in un mondo di sensazioni legate al mondo onirico. La musica scorre leggera, cangiante, contemplativa, infatti nasce dagli oscuri recessi del sonno, di sogni sfuocati e dall’ipnotico recesso neuro-circadiano. Si potrebbe al primo ascolto pensare ad un ambient chitarristico ben strutturato e basato su effetti di computer ben dosati, ma sarebbe una conclusione superficiale. C’è qualcosa di più nel suono di Ubik, che avvicina Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Disorder più a certe soluzioni post-rock (con i dovuti distinguo) di matrice minimalista e che non lascia scadere l’album nella prolissità, ma lo conduce su un sentiero emotivo impervio ed avvincente. Considerando il tema sperimentale su cui è stato realizzato l’album il processo creativo trova espressione attraverso ingranaggi analogici che si sovrappongono alle parti di elettronica assemblati con gusto e competenza. Un viaggio nelle profondità del sonno, scarnificato da beat mutanti, pulsazioni elettroniche, lacerazioni dello spazio chirurgicamente prodotte dalla dilatazione del riverbero chitarristico. Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Disorder, è un disco assoluto ed è inutile analizzare brano per brano. Arriva, si apre, tramortisce. In un’unica spirale di sensi e rapimento. Senza ritorno.

ANDREA FERRARIS / SODAPOP

E’ sorprendente che quando meno te lo aspetti esca sempre qualche disco capace di sorprenderti per gusto, qualità e fatto da qualcuno che non sia uno dei soliti nomi del circuito. Ma di quale circuito stiamo parlando? Di un certo tipo di musica sperimentale italiana che qui da noi si conosce ma che tutto sommato non ha spazio e che solitamente incide all’estero dove forse c’è più attenzione ad un certo tipo di sensibilità. Se proprio non si parla dello stesso tipo di musica Ubik potrebbe essere inserito in un calderone di cui fanno parte anche Nicola Ratti, Giuseppe Ielasi, Claudio Rocchetti, 3/4 Had Been Eliminated, Bellows, Luca Sigurtà e simili, parlo di musica elettronica, non proprio IDM e spesso neppure ritmica, ma spesso si tratta di musica melodica, molto curata, prodotta in modo ineccepibile e spesso molto melodica. Circadian Rythms, Sleep Disorder attinge da quel genere che si è sviluppato dall’ambient e che ha visto brillare gente come Lawrence English, Oren Ambarchi, Tim Hecker giusto per citare quelli più conosciuti. Ubik, al secolo Marco Bonini, parte dalla chitarra e dal laptop e da lì va de-costruendo le tracce manipolando il suono e sviluppandolo su affreschi molto, molto melodici. Il disco tanto ben congegnato che le tracce si succedono una dopo l’altra e scivola via senza che uno se ne accorga, durante i primi ascolti non riuscivo neppure a rendermi conto di quale fosse la durata effettiva, anzi, pensavo che fosse un peccato che si trattasse di un disco che bene o male se ne andava via piuttosto velocemente e questo è anche dovuto al fatto che al di là delle belle melodie e dell’ottimo lavoro di produzione, il lavoro di Bonini sia ben proporzionato. Se i lavori più melodici usciti su 12k e Die Schachtel non vi lasciano impassibili Ubik è decisamente da provare.