VIDEO:

Blind Cave Salamander live in Kortrijk, Belgium at the
Happy New Ears Festival 2007

Blind Cave Salamander live in Athens, Greece at the
Lost In Thyme Festival 2007

PRESS:

© 2007 Davide Pepe


© 2007 Davide Pepe

© 2007 Phil

© 2007 Maude Swift

REVIEWS:

Il Mucchio, Febbraio 2008, www.ilmucchio.it
The bit melancholic and slightly repugnant image of the blind amphibian that lives in the cold narrow tunnels far from the light of the sun inspires the touching instrumental score of the quartet which over the base of simple looped guitar chords elaborates sonorous settings of notable effectiveness, at intervals sweet and dreamlike, other times bleaker and full of anguish. A tiny jewel of avant-garde music arises that cleverly torments the abused mannerism of dark ambient and several other noisy disciplines that crowd the shelves of my private discotheque.
Fabio Massimo Arati

Rumore #188, September 2007
Having clearly established the sonic field and key inspiration of the overall work, know that this is a successful and highly evocative disc. The musicians are: Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo (Larsen, (r)) and Paul Beauchamp (Radon Collective) with the contributions of Julia Kent (Antony and the Johnsons) and Marco Milanesio (DsorDne). Guitar, electronics, cello and bass lead the listener down the fluid and inaccessable path of Proteus, the neotenic salamander that lives for a hundred years, capable of surviving for twelve years without eating, living in the total darkness of subterranean lakes, keeping its gills for all its life and which has an up till now unknown reproductive method. Not exactly a pet for your niece , but certainly the ideal amphibian for melodic weavings that can restore solitude, infinte isolation and quiet diversity. Apart from Proteus anguinus, the album does not have an oppresive concept but mixes waves of ambience, in a Kranky style, with folk music vibes that could conquer fans of Calexico and Dirty Three’s desertic atmospheres. A faultless soundtrack for a cavernicolous vetebrate.
8 out of 10.
Maurizio Blatto

Blow Up #113, October 2007
Finally the long-awaited debut of Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo and Paul Beauchamp, a disc that offers an unusual and unpredictable mixture of electronics, strings, guitar, drones and field recordings: a collection of sounds sculpted with care, that at times lean towards hypnotic, monotonous melodies (accompanied by Julia Kent, who in addition to cello also orchestrated the string arrangements) and at times accentuates a tendency to abstraction thanks to the contribution of Marco Milanesio. The field recordings captured in the Bossea Cave wrap the disc in a bursting and organic atmosphere, in which morbid strings infect sweet lullabies, and wrapping expanses are sucked into the slow whirlwind of obstinate rythms.
Though inseperable from the numerous and illustrious collaborations of its components (Larsen, Michael Gira, Current 93, Antony, just to name a few) the sound of Blind Cave Salamander presents itself as completely original: a very personal inflexion that insists on a hybrid vision of natural and synthetic of which, like the salamander that gives its name to the project, we will never discover the origins, but of which we can get the penetrating and submerged unraveling.
7 out of 8.
Daniela Cascella

www.musiquemachine.com
Blind Cave Salamander debut album is an often shadowy yet elegant mix of atmospheric classical textures, electronics, dark post rock and ambience. Featuring Paul Beauchamp handling Electronics & Voice, Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo(Larsen, XXL, and ( r ) ) on Effects & Electro-acoustics elements, Marco Milanesio (DsorDNE ) Programming, bass and sound design and lastly(but not leastly) Julia Kent (Antony and The Johnsons) on cello and string arrangements.
Inside the cd cover there’s a lengthy write up about something called the Human fish, a subterranean fish/ snake creature that are rarely seen by the human eye, the often brooding mix of sounds here would be the perfect soundtrack for drifting in underground vast cave network in search of the human fish. The sound of the album is set between dark post rock, rich yet dark string textures with subtle electronic and field recording elements weaved through-out. The tracks are usual quite harmonic, structured and beat-bound, with a sound that is effectively atmosphere and original blend of sounds that does sound unlike anyone else.
A dark compelling debut of instrumental music that brings together classical grace, downturned post rock shimmer and electronic atmospheres in a rewarding and original package.
Roger Batty

www.sentireascoltare.com
Bind Cave Salamander’s debut album is a true dive into a deep and alien subterranean world. A full sensory trip into the primordial total darkness of the reptilian habitat the project has taken its name and original inspiration from. Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo (electro-acoustics) and Paul Beauchamp (electronics), along with Julia Kent (cello) and Marco Milanesio’s production and sonic structures, have created an emotionally unstable sound-flow through the dark and mysterious lands of the primeval amphibian. Their music is an electroacoustic elegy to static and hidden living that requires taking sounds into the most remote depths of one’s self to be entirely understood. A work of perfect balance between acoustic movements and electronic lulls, ambient (a la Kranky) and apocalyptic folk vibes, Blind Cave Salamander is an highly evocative and introspective album, distant from the other projects of its members (Larsen, Antony and the Johnsons) thanks to an almost hallucinatory visionary power.
(Do not) see with the eyes, to see with the ears.
Stefano Pifferi

Wire #252, February 2005
Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo (of Larsen) and Paul Beauchamp (of Radon Collective) have collaborated on what is cleary the heaviest release i've held this month.
Blind Cave Salamander (PREcordings 3" CD) is packed with a five inch square piece of copper palting, that gives it a heft you won't forget once it has hit you in the head.
The four pieces included on the disc have surprisingly gentle inflections, combing low voices, ground-hugging mists of keyboards, genial electronic hucklebuck, and even acoustic guitar to create small vistas of delightful otherness that are sure to tickle stoners in alla languages
Byron Coley

Completely adapted to eternal darkness, the human fish hides in the depths of underground sources far from our inquisitive gaze. The pale skin contains no pigment and the tiny eyes can be seen only at the foetal stage. Later they athropy and skin grows over them. Approximately 25 cm long, with a flat tail surrounded by a skin-like fin, used for swimming, it is snake-like and this is the reason for its Latin species name anguinus (anguis = snake). It can also move using two pairs of legs - the front ones have three digits and the hind ones two. The entire body is more or less sensitive to light environment. It breathes in three ways. It has an excellent sense of smell and it probably also has a highly specialised sense for weak electric currents, which could partly explain its orientation abilities in the total darkness of the cave. On either side of its body, at the back of its head, there are three pairs of extended gills which have excellent blood circulation and are therefore of a bright red colour. In addition it has simple lungs, and when out of water it also breathes through its skin, for we must not forget that almost absolute humidity prevails in the cave environment.
It eats small animals, such as cave shrimps, amphipods and the larvae of various insects. Sometimes, under the cover of the night, human fish swim to the cave exit where they hunt for small surface water animals. Cannibalism is not unusual in mocherils either, but a fully-grown animal can naturaly only attack very small young, as its blunt muzzle and small teeth make it no fearsome predator. Proteus has always caused great fascination, since it can remain in captivity without food for an incredibly long period. Reliable and documented reports by various observers are known about their ability to go without food, the longest such period having gone on at the Faculty of Biotechnology for the last 12 years. It sounds impossible, but at the same time we know proteus' metabolism must be extremely decelerated, since the human fish reaches sexual maturity only at the age of 16 to 18 years and it may even reach the grand old age of 100. A special chapter in the history of research into the human fish deals with the mysterious question of the animal's reproduction. Diver have swam through kilometres of siphons and underground lakes, researchers have turned countless stones, but so far nobody has seen where or how the life of this mysterious creature begins. We can only assume that proteus reproduces deep down in the peaceful and inaccessible watercourses of the karst underground.


Blind Cave Salamander‘s full length debut album has been recorded at the O.F.F. studios in Torino, Italy as well as inside the Bossea Cave (Frabosa Soprana, Italy). It has been released by Blossoming Noise on Sept. 2007 and it features an original artwork by austrian photographer Ruth Bayer.
Blind Cave Salamander has played several live shows in Europe, some on the bill with friends Nurse With Wound (with whom B.C.S. has an ongoing collaboration project), including various art festivals, as well as commissioned works for Torino World Design Capital and Manifesta in Italy.
Blind Cave Salamander is now finalizing its new album (also featuring Michael Begg of Fovea Hex and Human Greed as well as pianist Paul Wallfisch)


Blind Cave Salamander is:
Paul Beauchamp:
Electronics, Music Saw, Harmonica, Vocals
Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo:
Guitar, Electric Viola, Vocals

with:

Julia Kent: Cello, Vocals
Marco Milanesio: Programming, Bass, Sound Design