I suspect that Giuseppe Ielasi named his three-vinyl EP project Stunt as a nod to those who know him better as an improvisational guitarist. My expectations of some intense minimal guitar compositions were overturned at first hearing as I found myself listening to an album full of needle-drops. (Another) Stunt—the second album in this project—is, in fact, an experimental turntablism record, documenting Ielasi’s explorations of looped beats culled from a collection of vinyl records. The sampled beats and fragments are layered into a nice selection of six electronic dub pieces. Ielasi chooses some beautiful samples with which to work (on a couple of tracks, he still focuses on the possibilities of the guitar) and creates a series of pieces that, while not quite danceable, develop an internal pulse that open up the original source material into a skittering series of interlocking rhythms.
Chris Kennedy is an independent filmmaker, film programmer and writer based out of Toronto. He has programmed for the Images Festival, the Pleasure Dome screening collective, the Free Screen at TIFF Bell Lightbox and he co-founded the Early Monthly Segments film salon. His short experimental films have screened at over one hundred film festivals. He holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. More information on his work is available at www.theworldviewed.com