UNSUI
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REVIEW CD
UNSUI – Il sentiero dei bambu'- 2004
Stefano Scala, is an Italian musical researcher, musician, composer and music therapist; his work often deals with the notion of travel and knowledge, he began researching the more recondite roots of music. He has studied non – European music for years, and has worked with variety of musicians from all continents. UNSUI is a CD beautiful – the are ethnic instruments e primitive sounds.
(MM Music Magazines - Bob Commers)
This music generates an indescribable richness of sound that belies the simplicity of the bamboo instruments.
(PhD Psychologist of Univesity of Linz - Austria - Peter Gheisser )
Always looking for the new, Maestro Stefano Scala, who has never distinguished between his two activities as researcher and musician, in this CD has taken inspiration from the music of Japan and China.“Unsui, il sentiero del bambù” is a CD rich in emotion recorded in three different countries, France, Switzerland and Italy, by three musicians of different nationalities: the Italian Stefano Scala, the Japanese Akira Yokohama and the French-Chinese Laurent Wu. This work, the results of research lasting five years, which brings together Japanese and Chinese traditional music as well as the wide-ranging experiences of the three musicians. Their interpretations take into account the precise rules of the original representations, as they make them their own without distorting them. In this CD there are used a wide range of traditional and ceremonial wind and percussion instruments. The starting point for the author was to discover that playing an instrument as important for Japanese culture, especially its religion, as the shakuachi (in a simplified way defined sweet Japanese flute), was considered not merely an artistic exercise, but a control of breathing. Scala's approach is meditative and spiritual, as he continues from where his last work left off: his 2001 CD of harmonic singing “Bagliori dell'anima” (Pongo Classica PCD 2059). The CD has eight tracks, of which two (tracks 2 and 4) by Scala are inspired by Siberian shamanistic traditions and the Japanese Myoan and Kinko schools. Track 4 is dedicated to Dersu' Uzala, (the name of a film by Kurosawa – Scala has a long-standing passion for Japanese cinema), the small man of the wide plains who shows men that nature is the inner world that talks of the outside world, words that perfectly reflect Scala's being. This is a CD whose sounds appear distant yet at the same time near. The cover price is transparent, with part of the sales proceeds donated to the Indian Cooperative Machie Kash.
(Percussioni – Peppe Consolmagno)
Unsui, the wandering begging monks, were the inspiration behind this new work by the musical researcher and composer Maestro Stefano Scala. The sound of the Japanese shakuachi flute and its breathing technique led to the systematic development of the tracks (6 traditional, 2 by Scala) of this musical jewel. I would go so far as define this work an ethno-spiritual journey, that opens up to us the doors to Zen gardens, while we remain seated in our comfortable western armchairs. This is the result of painstaking research by the author and performer together with the Japanese Yokohama and the French-Chinese Wu, where the three musicians play a myriad of percussion, wind and stringed instruments with extreme skill. This is a fantastic CD, and as soon as you put it in the player, you'll want it to keep on turning without ever stopping. This is a truly beautiful spiritual journey through sound.
(Incontri e Spiritualità – Pino Joso)
……………it is not easy to find players of bamboo, but when you do you cannot help abandoning yourself to this mix of sounds, that leads you on an imaginative journey that we could call “Il Sentiero dei Bambu' (‘the path of bamboo'). It is no coincidence that this is in fact the title of a CD by the Italian composer, music therapist, ethno-musicologist and sound researcher Stefano Scala. Close to the entourage of Franco Battiato, and a member of various symphony orchestras …..he has made use of a range of unusual instruments such as ceremonial bells, shamanic drums, bird calls, leaves, drums and bamboo flutes, to reproduce sounds that seem to come from other worlds, from other realities ……
(O. L. – PRL G.A.A. Bellinzona/CH , CDC)