Today we catch up with the Italian musician Toni Cutrone‘s experimental electronic and minimal techno project Mai Mai Mai, whose upcoming 12″ Delta is due out May 24th via Yerevan Tapes in a limited vinyl pressing of 500 copies. Cutrone also plays in the noise-rock band Hiroshima Rocks Around, and the electro-punk duo Trouble vs. Glue, in addition to running the label NO=FI Recordings, as well as the Dal Verme Club in Rome. His first release as Mai Mai Mai was the Theta LP, which came out in 2013 on Boring Machines, and while that effort found Cutrone working solo, on Delta he is joined by Gianni Giublena Rosacroce on clarinet, Donato Epiroís on organ, and Piovs on Moog. Using this futuristic, free jazz set-up, Mai Mai Mai creates a very intriguing fusion of ambient and electronic; and it bears echoes of experimental jazz thru a seemingly improvisational approach, noise through it’s challenging use of sonics, as well as a minimal kind of techno through stark, drum-machine driven rhythms. Inspired by the Thargelia party in old Athens, an ancient Greek festival celebrating purification and the health of the Spring crops, Delta‘s release on May 24th will fall on the same day as this year’s festival opening!
Cosmic drone and peels of rolling thunder begin the EP’s first track “Efroniou“, before a heartbeat pulse of bass lays the cut’s rhythmic groundwork; and when snapping handclaps are added into the growingly menacing brew, it’s the kind of surprise that forces a listener to recalibrate just what kind of sonic ground they might be standing on. “Efroniou” is the most ostensibly “techno” of all the four tracks here, but in minimal and very interesting ways. It uses suspicious sniffs of handshakers to mark traces of a 4/4 beat, before they switch place later in the track with the blood throb of the kick, while all the while sinuous drones of Moog slither around a cacophony of clarinet thunder. Delta‘s second track “Byzantium” introduces ghosts of percussion fluttering in the thin breeze, as monks intone an ancient chant. With the kick drum offering a very irregular and random structure, the oscillating peels of buzzing synthesizer and airy drones are forced to drift, and by the track’s end they’ve found quite an eery and haunted atmosphere.
Tetractys” begins the B-side, and while the word in Greek literally means “four”, the number upon which “techno” is built, the rhythms here are tribal and hand-drum driven instead, lending the track an ancient, open air mood. The band’s loose improvisational approach is nuanced and seems inspired by free jazz, and they add spoken-word vocals for the first time to the proceedings, making for a cut with charged and magickal aire. “Hegira” closes the 12″ EP with a particularly perilous sounding ambience, and while it’s dark forces grow, a simple bell-tone seems to be seeking a ritualized order amongst the miasma of sound. Again, the players use a free approach to create their cosmic-sounding chaos, and as acid-crushed bits of squelched beat are added to the mix, Delta‘s mysterious, alien presence seems to be finally, fully revealed!
