Human beings are all too prone to the delusion that they stand at the centre of the universe. Everything revolves – ideally – around them. Displaces by Francesco Fabris is one of those records that exposes this misconception. It is concerned with hyperobjects and cartographic practices, with the mapping of complexity – from the microcosm to the larger whole. At first glance, that may seem cold and clinical.
Francesco Fabris draws us into a sonic labyrinth in which fragments of memory mingle with otherworldly currents. Nothing remains in place. Everything shifts according to a plan that cannot be discerned. There is no rhythm, no melody, only expanses of drone, ambient and experimental music in whose ravines it is a pleasure to lose oneself. »The Map Is The Territory« lures the listener into these depths, where the sound seems almost to resemble a human voice, though in the end nothing but emptiness slips through one’s fingers.
The most tangible moment is »Topography of Extinction«. A melody almost – but only almost – begins to take shape, a memory of a feeling, before the sound collapses in on itself. This labyrinth dissolves even as we are being led through it. The great achievement of this album lies in the way it touches something within us that almost no other music can reach.
Displaces
