The Anatomy of Sound: Capricorni Pneumatici’s Dissections

If the early work of Capricorni Pneumatici was about the purity of the ritual moment—capturing a specific invocation in a specific space—then their 2017 release, Dissections, represents the opposite but equally vital pole of their creative identity: the archive. This sprawling, 2xCD set is not a document of a single night or a single location. It is a retrospective travelogue, a sonic sketchbook, and a deliberate act of creative autopsy. Released on the Italian label ADN Records, Dissections compiles recordings made over a four-year period across three countries—Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Italy—offering listeners an unprecedented look inside the workshop of an esoteric sound alchemist.

The title Dissections is brutally literal and metaphorically rich. It suggests a clinical, analytical process applied to organic material. Here, the “bodies” being dissected are not physical, but acoustic: field recordings, ritual actions, synthesizer experiments, and environmental resonances. The album presents these “specimens” not as finished compositions, but as carefully preserved and presented artifacts for study.

This approach allows the listener to witness the raw materials of the Capricorni Pneumatici method. We are not hearing a narrative journey from A to B, but rather a collection of isolated moments, each with its own distinct texture and origin. It is the sound of the group thinking aloud, testing hypotheses, and documenting results over nearly half a decade. The inclusion of recordings from three distinct countries adds a geographical dimension to the dissection, suggesting that the spiritual geography of each location—the “genius loci”—imprints itself onto the tape in a unique way.

Spread across two discs, Dissections is an exercise in contrasts, moving between the serene and the violently abrasive, often within the span of a single track.

Disc one tends to favor the project’s more atmospheric, contemplative, and acoustic side. It is here that we encounter the “Tibetan bowls” mentioned in the press materials, their metallic hums and overtones creating a meditative, almost sacred space. Tracks built from these sources feel less like industrial music and more like the documentation of a private, minimalist ritual. The listener is placed in the role of a silent observer, watching as Capricorni Pneumatici generate sound through physical interaction with resonant objects. The “low, calm waves of a forgotten sea” evoke a sense of deep-time geology, grounding the esoteric explorations in a tangible, natural world.

Disc two, in stark contrast, unleashes the project’s harsher and more overtly electronic tendencies. The “harsh and crude electronics” and “overloads of sound” that characterize this half of the album connect Dissections back to the power electronics roots of the wider industrial scene. It is a visceral, unsettling experience. The shift is not merely one of volume, but of intent. Where the first disc invites contemplation, the second demands confrontation. This structural dichotomy is the album’s central artistic statement: the esoteric path, it seems to suggests, contains both profound stillness and terrifying chaos. They are not separate journeys, but two sides of the same dissected specimen.

The true value of Dissections lies in its diversity of sonic material. It serves as a compendium of the techniques Capricorni Pneumatici had developed and refined over their 30-year history:

• Environmental Field Recordings: The locations themselves become instruments. The sound of wind in ruins, water in caves, or the vast emptiness of an abandoned industrial site are captured with a documentarian’s fidelity. These are not mere “atmospheres”; they are the foundational textures upon which other elements are layered.

• Ritualistic Object Interaction: The acoustic core of the project remains present. The clang of metal, the resonance of stone, the hiss of manipulated air—these “concrete” sounds are presented in close, intimate detail, as if the microphone were placed inches from the action.

• Electronic Textures: The Yamaha DX7 and treated guitars are used not for melody, but for texture. The FM synthesis produces grainy, shifting drones and unsettling, metallic shrieks. The tape manipulation creates ghostly delays and degraded loops, adding a layer of decay and impermanence to the sound.

• Voice: When voices appear, they are treated as yet another instrument—whispered invocations, guttural chants, or distorted, unintelligible pronouncements that emerge from and recede back into the sonic murk.

Dissections occupies a unique position in the Capricorni Pneumatici catalog. Unlike the focused ritual documents of the 80s (CP I, Al-Azif) or the more thematically unified albums of the revival era (The Erivar trilogy), Dissections is intentionally fragmented and encyclopedic. It is, in many ways, the ultimate introduction to the project’s world, as it displays the full range of their vocabulary in a single, sprawling package.

For the dedicated listener, it is a treasure trove, revealing the breadth of research and experimentation that underpins their more focused works. It confirms that Capricorni Pneumatici are not just performers of ritual sound, but serious researchers whose work involves listening to the world as much as shaping it. Dissections is not an album for casual listening; it is an experience of sustained attention, a four-year journey compressed into sound, and a testament to the power of treating music as a form of esoteric inquiry.