Perceive Reality is the second album from KHOMPA, the electrifying solo project of Davide Compagnoni, featuring an adventurous mix of drumming, electronics and cutting edge drum triggering technology. The album is released worldwide on 29 April on Monotreme Records on digital and CD formats, as well as a limited edition pressing of 300 LPs on 180 g white vinyl.
KHOMPA’s previous album, the ground-breaking The Shape of Drums to Come (2016), which was featured on Ableton.com and Modern Drummer, introduced this unique audiovisual live project, whose main elements are: a drummer, a conventional drum kit, 3 cutting edge drum sensors, a laptop and a step sequencer. Each drum controls a virtual musical instrument (synthesizers, samplers, arpeggiators, etc.) within Ableton Live music software that, in combination with a custom step sequencer developed with MaxforLive app, allows Davide to perform real melodies/electronic orchestration without the use of any backing track. 100% live. In addition to that, he also uses a microphone set up in the middle of the drum kit to capture the dynamics of the acoustic drums and translate them through an ‘envelope follower’ into electronic parts in several ways.
Opener Belief bursts the record into life, as skittering arpeggios spin across a vast open plain of pad synths, before the ground splits beneath it with thrashing drums. On Conceived, Davide creates a simultaneously dark and euphoric wall of crystallised sound, a cacophony of pounding drum hits and icy electronic stabs, with an intensity that continues into Collide. With its shuddering, cut-out reverbered synth pads split in two by crashing cymbals and snares, the song spins itself into a transformative cycling trance, before slowly fading and washing away into silence, only to be broken by Conjectures’ sudden cymbal slams and transfixed toms that roll like thunder into a frenzy, before their final lightning strike. On Subjective, arpeggios twist around beating kick drums and toms, quickly scaling to a furious yet tightly wound sequence that envelops the listener, before Relief, where the album finally takes the shape of a huge wave of calm, glimmering hope and reflection.
About the concept behind this latest album, Davide says, “Perceive Reality is a vivid exhortation to deepen the relationship with reality, avoiding simple and often illusory visions. In a historical context that fosters the proliferation of dual information and visions, individuals are increasingly exposed to the danger of perceiving less the complexity of events, thus losing the training to express complex and articulated opinions, the result of a reflection, whether individual or collective. Without having the presumption of resolving epochal issues, the project alerts to the fact that univocal answers do not exist and that only by developing a path of knowledge and giving ourselves the opportunity to examine things in depth, can we enter into the relationship with the existing.”
Based on this concept and in collaboration with the visual artist Riccardo Franco-Loiri, KHOMPA is currently developing the Perceive Reality AV show. This live show adds another layer of complexity to the performance in which Davide, using sophisticated sensors applied on the drum kit, controls in real time both the entire musical apparatus and the live visuals too. At each touch of the drums correspond different actions: the change of a musical note, the input or output of an instrument within a composition, as well as a video/color change, switching on or off a video effect, etc. The artist performs live musical compositions that would usually require at least two/three musicians to be played live and, at the same time, coordinates the entire audio reactive visual system.
The visuals will have the task of leading the viewer into the main Perceive Reality concept. The video projections, which at first may seem indefinite and abstract, will suddenly take on a concrete and real appearance, and will facilitate a perception that is gradually distant from the initial one: a disruptive flow in which fragments of perspectives come one after the other, to stimulate and surprise the eye of the audience. The invitation of the performance is therefore reiterated: we choose how to construct opinions about the events of our lives and the world. The more we are able to emancipate ourselves from imposed visions, the freer we will be to develop our own independence of thought and choice.
Composer: Davide Compagnoni
Producer: KHOMPA except ‘Conceived’ and ‘Conjectures’ (Bienoise and KHOMPA), ‘Collide’ and Subjective’ (Davide Tomat and KHOMPA)
Recorded and mixed by Maurizio Borgna
Mastered by Stefano Genta
Artwork by Simone Vezzani
Layout by Massimiliano Feroldi
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℗ & © 2022 KHOMPA under license to Monotreme Records Ltd