LIEUTENAT MURNAU

Alias: TRAX 0982 / TRAX 0983 / VITTORE BARONI

musique concrete / abstractism / sound art / anti records / collage art / concrete turntablism / noise / contemporary art / fluxus

Vittore Baroni is an Italian journalist who was among the first to write about industrial music and the new experimental frontiers. He recorded some experiments on his own which appeared on different compilations, then towards the end of the 80s' he founded the odd experimental band Le Forbici Di Manitù. 'Lieutenant Murnau' was a pioneering musical project from Vittore Baroni (Italy) operating in the field of "plagiarism", known in Italy as an obscure act it became a cult afterwards. When he first got involved in Mail-Art around 1977, artists like Genesis P. Orridge (1), Richard H. Kirk (2), Monte Cazazza (3) and Nigel Ayers (4) were among Baroni's early contacts. He began to be involved in what at that time was called the "tape network", with his own audio experiments. After a few years of experiments in sound-poetry he began with his project 'Lieutenant Murnau' in 1980. His experiments as 'Lieutenant Murnau' were much more ironical then the industrial music which had at that time its evolution since the mid seventies. It was a little step beyond industrial, Baroni was mostly interested in that area of audio collage which in a few years took the name of "plunderphonics" or "plagiarism". He did not want to play a single note or instrument but to recycle and transform the record releases of other musicians to create new sounds. His sleeping room was his studio where he created his music with the help of only a few tape decks, old record players, prepared vinyl records, tape loops made on a old Geloso reel-to-reel tape recorder, some toy instruments, … he created his music.