This album length project is the latest release from percussionist Maurizio Ravalico and features him in an unusual sonic duet with electronic musician Isambard Khroustaliov.

Ravalico was born and raised in Trieste, Italy but has lived and worked in London since 1991. His previous release the “Ezzthetic EP” has been reviewed elsewhere on this site and chronicles much of Ravalico’s musical history. His present projects also include his duo with the remarkable tuba player Oren Marshall and his work as a member of the prestigious F-ire Collective. He also plays with Dele Sosimi’s Afrobeat Ensemble and with the ten-piece merengue and salsa band Merengada.

Former architect Khroustaliov began composing electronic music in 1996. Since 1997 he has worked with Ollie Bown as one half of the electronic duo Icarus and they have released several recordings for a variety of labels and toured all over Europe. In 2004 the Icarus album “I Tweet The Birdy Electric” (Leaf Records) was named as one of The Wire Magazine’s top ten electronic albums of the year.

Hitherto self taught Khroustaliov then undertook a masters course in electronic music at IRCAM in Paris under the tutelage of composer Philippe Leroux among others. His piece “Junkspace” for banjo and electronics was premiered at IRCAM in 2006. Khroustaliov is now writing a piece for string quartet and electronics. He is committed to fusing electronics with a range acoustic instruments and his work with Ravalico is an important part of this process.

The music contained on “Five Loose Plans” can only be described as experimental. Ravalico’s percussion set up includes conventional, if rather exotic, instruments such as surdos, Tibetan bowls and cymbals plus “found ” objects and devices such as kitchen utensils, industrial components, marbles, film tapes and even magnolia leaves.

Khroustaliov picks up the acoustic sounds generated by Ravalico and processes them using a variety of self-invented software tools. This is then played back to Ravalico to create an ongoing dialogue.

The sound created by this process verges on the “musique concrete”. Ravalico’s percussion deliberately steers clear of conventional beats and metres and once it has been treated by Khroustaliov it becomes even more abstract. However, as on the “Ezzthetic EP” the acoustic percussive element is a vital factor in humanising the music. There are several passages of thunderous acoustic percussion of great virtuosity that serve to punctuate the more abstract electronic episodes.

The soundscapes generated here are too spiky and challenging to be classed as ambient, but they can be both atmospheric and dramatic. “Five Loose Plans” is certainly not a record for the general listener. However, fans of electronic and improvised music should find much to enjoy here. Repeated listening reveals fresh layers and nuances as the duo lure you into their unusual but strangely compelling musical world.

This is the type of music that was likely to be heard on Radio Three’s “Mixing It” before the shameful decision was taken to axe the programme. Sadly there is now very little chance of this kind of music getting any airtime at all and it is likely to be pushed even further into the margins.

And since you ask I’m none too pleased about the decision to cut “Late Junction” to four shows a week and even less impressed with it being moved to an unreasonably late transmission time. Is there a hidden agenda to reduce listener numbers and hence give the BBC a spurious excuse to abolish this too?

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