FLeUR is the Italian electroacoustic duo comprised of Enrico Dutto and Francesco Lurgo. They have released new album called Caring Abut Something Utterly Useless which is out via Bosco Rec. It was produced by Emilio Pozzolini (port-royal). According to the press release, Some tracks were written for plays – think of “Narcissus’ Scream”, inspired by playwright Sarah Kane – and for live performances in other galleries; others were born in the course of improvisations and thoughts forced by the 2020 lockdown.
They explain: “The title “Caring About Something Utterly Useless” came from a reflection upon the fact that instrumental music is one of the most “useless” forms of art, it does mean nothing per se, no words, no proper storytelling, no direct representation of reality, only a very faint onomatopoeic resemblance with some natural phenomena. At the same time, probably because of this abstractness, it has an amazing strength at expressing those most inner and deep sentiments that are impossible to describe with words. It is fascinating, there’s something primordial in that need for this raw sensorial stimulus, something beyond social conventions, planted deeply in our mind. The title of the track “For Pierre Brassau” (the painter monkey, whose paintings were mistaken for human by some critics) also reflects on the primordiality of the need to make art. These two titles we would say are clearly ironic and damn serious at the same time.
We got in touch with Emilio some years ago because we loved his work with port-royal, and when I (Francesco) moved to Milan I discovered that his studio was very close to my place. So we hung out together a few times, I visited the studio and had the pleasure to appreciate some productions he had been working on, and, most importantly, discovered that he is a really nice person beside his musical skills. Therefore it came natural to hire him for this production.
At first we came to him with some raw material and discussed it, receiving some advices; then later we came back with much more advanced work and here he started to really push us out of our comfort zone by pulling the tracks in some directions voluntarily slightly off the path that we initially thought. At first it felt strange but it’s been challenging and then we found together the sweet spot between our own initial ideas and his inputs; the result is an album which is unmistakably ours and faithful to our vision but at the same time it’s full of details from his sensitivity that make a valuable plus in the final result.
This constant exchange with talented people is definitely one of the aspects in which music is NOT actually useless for us.”
Check the full streaming below.