A truly pleasant and finely crafted work comes from the artist Xu (Nicola Fornasari). His album Murmurs of the Machine was released this summer on Le Mont Analogue as the tenth title in Dronarivm’s cassette-focused sublabel. The album leaves a strong impression with its slow yet unwavering pace that gradually draws the listener into ever-deeper layers of its sonic space.
Conceived as a meditation on the functioning of systems — mechanical and natural, physical and abstract — the album explores their subtle relationships and points of intersection. Working with a modular synthesizer (eurorack modular), Xu shapes an exquisitely delicate “whisper” of machines, conveying the quiet “breathing” of the system and offering a gentle, contemplative space for reflection.
These understated, multi-layered compositions — built from noise textures and minimalist gestures — reveal the fragile dynamics of something complex, yet nearly silent in its operation.
The physical editions of this label are exceptionally crafted: the album is available in a deluxe cassette version with hand-made boxes, as well as in a limited standard cassette edition. Both versions feature the artwork Fish and Seaweed by Rinkyo (Japan, 16th century), a piece that perfectly complements the meditative character of the music.
