Fata Morgana by Nula.cc

Nula.cc | Fata Morgana
Self release (DL)

“Cinematography with sound”

Field recording is the process of capturing or recording audio outside a recording studio, in an open or closed area or field. Nula.cc, hailing from Czech Republic, do exactly that. The project began in 2009 as a series of albums (filecasts in the project’s own language), emanating from an online presence. They have managed to accumulate quite a handful of them, eleven to be exact, with Fata Morgana being their latest.

Nula.cc captures and then documents their material collectively – a combination of field recordings and found sounds, as well as the process of gathering such material. With very limited information as to what an album is about, they leave their work to speak alone and rightfully so.

A Fata Morgana is a complex form of superior mirage, seen in a narrow band right above the horizon. It is named after the Arthurian sorceress Morgan Le Fay, from a belief that these mirages, often seen in the Strait of Messina, were fairy castles in the air or false land created by her witchcraft to lure sailors to their deaths. Evidently, Fata Morgana is about something that is and in the same time is not; something that manifests itself instantly and disappears rapidly, but of which we can capture its image if we are lucky or fast enough. Their purpose is to capture as much as they can, from a broader landscape. An abstract documentation, where the recorder is capturing whatever passes before it, endlessly. A post-card in sound, a physical representation of all sounds in front of Nula.cc. Lucky us, we will embrace from it as much as we can.

Six fluent and direct compositions clocking to 44 minutes, this is a formidable ambient album. A blurry aesthetic is observable everywhere, as layers of haze are laying gently on every sonic surface. Essentially a sound collage too, a mixture of various elements, with each of them holding its uniqueness and purpose. A process equivalent to montage is utilized: this is cinematography with sound, artistically significant and plural!

As with every Nula.cc filecast, Fata Morgana is a pay-what-you-want (or even free) digital release.