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:


©Davide Pepe 2007


©Davide Pepe 2007


©Davide Pepe 2007


©Davide Pepe 2007

©Davide Pepe 2007


REVIEWS:

Musique Machine 2008
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.musiquemachine.com

Sentire Ascotare Online Music Magazine January 2008
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 movement and electronic lull, 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

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

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

The Wire #252 Febuary 2005
FABRIZIO MODONESE PALUMBO (of Larsen) and PAUL BEAUCHAMP ( of Gullinkambi) 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 plating, 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 all 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.

PAUL BEAUCHAMP
www.gullinkambi.com
www.myspace.com/paulbeauchamp

FABRIZIO MODONESE PALUMBO
www.deathtripper.com
www.myspace.com/fabriziomodonesepalumbo

JULIA KENT
www.juliakent.com
www.myspace.com/julia_kent

MARCO MILANESIO
www.off.to.it
www.myspace.com/9cento9

BOOKING+MANAGEMENT
www.off.to.it/booking.htm

LABELS
www.blossomingnoise.com
www.myspace.com/blossomingnoise
www.precordings.com

Self-Titled - 2007 Blossoming Noise


 

Golden Single 001 - 2004 Precordings (sold out)

May 26, 2008
Salamander has recently spent an afternoon in Nietzsche Fabrik harvesting sounds in preparation of the coming June 21st performance/installation at said factory. This installation will be part of "Torino World Design Capital" and will be a special one-off performance arranged specifically for Nietzsche Fabrik. Our thanks go to the aritsans of Nietzsche who were very accomodating as we strung cables and microphones throughout their factory.

March 22, 2008
Tracking of the new Salamander cd has finished. Mixing and mastering remain to be done. We're hoping for an Autumn release at this point. New live dates have also been confirmed, please check the "LIVE" section for details.

Blind Cave Salamander are pleased to announce that our first full length cd is now available, released by the wonderful people at Blossoming Noise...

This self-titled debut, recorded at O.F.F. in Torino,Italy and inside the Bossea Cave in Fabrosa Soprana, Italy, features Julia Kent on cello and string arrangements plus Marco Milanesio who not only recorded, mixed and mastered the album but also contributed sound design, programming and bass. The cd also features original artwork by Austrian photographer Ruth Bayer (www.ruthbayer.com).

 

UPCOMING LIVE DATES:
June 21, 2008 @ Nietzsche Fabrik - Turin, Italy
July 16, 2008 @ Terrazza Delle Stelle, Viote Di Monte Bodone - Trento, Italy + Fovea Hex
July 20, 2008 @ Associazione "Navel" - Udine, Italy - Mittelimmagini Festival
Nov 8, 2008 @ Industrial Festival - Wroclaw, Poland + Nurse With Wound

PAST LIVE DATES:
Dec 12, 2007@ Bronson - Ravenna, with Stars Of The Lid
Dec 10, 2007@ Spazio 211 - Turin, with Stars Of The Lid
Nov 25, 2007@ Teatro Fondamenta Nuove - Venice, with Nurse With Wound
Nov 24, 2007@ Teatro Fondamenta Nuove - Venice, with Nurse With Wound
Nov 2, 2007@ Volksbuehne - Berlin, with Nurse With Wound
Oct 12, 2007 @ Sala Castello - Barcelona, Spain
Oct 10, 2007 @ SONS c/o Capilla Municipal de Cultura - Castellon, Spain
Sept 14, 2007 @ Happy New Ears - Festival Voor Nieuwe Muziek, Kortrijk, Belgium
May 18, 2007 @ Hybrida, Tarcento; Udine, Italy + Yellow Swans
April 29, 2007 @ Lost In Thyme Music Festival c/o Art House Ekvasis, Athens, Greece
Jan 27, 2007 @ Sound Metak, Milano, Italy
Nov 29, 2004 @ Antidox, Torino, Italy + Legendary Pink Dots