Franca Sacchi, one of the few female electronic composers of the 60s and 70s, was born in Milan in 1940. Along with her contemporaries like Pietro Grossi and Teresa Rampazzi, Sacchi defined the sound of the Italian experimental scene, a genre that is just now seeing the light of day thanks to some incredible reissues from the Italian label Die Schachtel. I first found Sacchi though recent CD reissues of her unreleased material from the late 60s and early 70s called En, and while the whole disc is pretty amazing — mostly consisting of quiet, sustained drone/meditation pieces — the final 30-minute track really steals the show.
“Danza, Mia Cara” (“We Danced, My Beloved”) is an odyssey through tape manipulation, backward loops, and sparkling walls of synthesized noise that jells beautifully into a seamless wash of analog warmth. The track is carried by bubbling modular synth figures that slowly warp in the background while chopped up and reversed tape loops flit from side to side. The whole mass of sound pulses along for 25 minutes until it breaks into a magnificent closing stretch, where multiple arpeggiated synths collapse on each other into a wall of gurgling electric noise. It’s a wonder how this track manages to absorb listeners so fully for a full half hour, but as soon as you hear the first wave of seemingly locked-grove synth gently drub your ears, all other thoughts melt away. Put away Soothing Sounds of the Rainforest; this is truly music for meditating.
