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The Upside-Down Me- The Art of War

Alberto Dattilo, who records as The Upside-Down Me, hails from Calabria, in the southern part of Italy. He titles this release "The Art of War", which hearkens back to the Sun Tzu text on military strategy from circa 500 B.C. Yet this work is no tired tome on maneuvers or business genius. The album does not dwell on the damaged chariots of the past, nor the hyper-modern death gliders of the future, but upon the contradictions, survival strategies and defeats of the flower war we call living.

So many times experimental musicians divide into the warring camps of noise and melody. The Upside-Down Me combines both strains on the field of chivalry for a jousting tournament which proves entirely satisfying. In a time when Satie, artificially adopted as the grandfather of ambient, has come to be given the reverence of a museum piece, the Art of War gives an original Satie-like attention to compelling melodies in the midst of atmospheric pads of intriguing light noise.

Boris Spassky defeated the stalwart Tigran Petrosian in their rematch, to become the chess champion of the world, until Bobby Fischer, in his turn, defeated Spassky and then melted down in a tragedy of Icarus-like proportions. The piece "Spasskij" gives us neither challenger nor champion, but instead the thrill of the play--the complexities of the opening, and the inevitable calculation of the endgame. The king topples, or the position is drawn. "Wake Up/Make Up" evokes that ultimate survival strategy in the war which is love.

Noise and melody are the lion and the lamb. Mr. Dattilo, who has studied his art history, knows that
in our dreams they lie down together. The result is a fascinating blend of the acoustic and the electronic, and of the pristine tones of song with the necessary drones of noise.

We are pleased to release the Upside-Down Me, who, in turn, has helped blaze a new way for netlabels
with his new group to help netlabel fans come together, Netlabels' NET:

www.myspace.com/netlabels39net

We believe that he comes in peace, and that these pieces may transport you to pacific wars among friendly stars. Is it a mirror of the world? Sadly, perhaps not. But let his interesting sounds be a mirror within your mind, until the day when all the wars are of the imagination only.

roads has been downloaded 1284 times
probably, sure has been downloaded 1052 times
spasskij has been downloaded 1092 times
wake up / make up has been downloaded 1059 times

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Cover Design:
Alberto Dattilo & NSI

Cover Photography:
Alberto Dattilo

Release Code:
NSI000011

The Upside-Down Me Links:

Myspace
Netlabel Group

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.