Elektriktus
In the mid of the ‘70s, PDU, well known Italian label, released an LP under the name of Elektriktus in the style of the German Cosmic Progressive Rock.
It happened because PDU, well known label owned by the Italian singer Mina, at that time was the Italian importer for all those German Electronic Music albums and producer of several Progressive and Cosmic Rock albums.
In the same time PSU started a New Jazz / Avant-garde series signing all the new Italian talents.
And exactly one of those new talented Italian players decided to start, on the side of his jazz career, a new activity in the Cosmic Progressive Rock field.
Under the mysterious pen-name Elektriktus, he released this album, soon becoming a cult for the fans of that genre.
Andrea Centazzo was the artist: today a well known composer, percussionist, keyboardist and multimedia artist, Andrea finally returns with this solo project proposing again the old beloved compositions and presenting a batch of new exciting tunes.
50 years from the release of the mysterious and most celebrated Electronic Mind Waves album, the magic electronic sounds of Elektriktus are here again with a new CD and LP (release date February 2024) and and a new fascinating multimedia concert.
The project in its multimedia version (a solo concert is also available) takes advantage from an amazing video show composed and edited by Centazzo himself using exclusive images and animation courtesy of NASA, LIGO and ESA and other space agencies plus segments composed specifically for the show.
The precious analog sound of all vintage synthesizers is here, shining again together with the new computer music and a wide array of percussion instruments (gongs, bells, cymbals, etc.) peculiar of this artist, capable of expressing himself in several musical languages.
Elektriktus has been source of debating, blogging and research for 25 years until Centazzo didn’t decide in 2007 to reveal to the world that he was the man behind Electronic Mind Waves.
Here you have some of the reviews and comments on Elektriktus from the 18.000 plus web dedicated pages.
Often overlooked due to its much more well-known symphonic cousins, the electronic artist known as Elektriktus was a virtual iconoclast in mid 70s Italy… Finding more in common with Conrad Schnitzler than Klaus Schulze, Electronic Mind Waves sends shimmering waves of synthesizer patterns forward through a journey that is plotted out by flying, kicking off the voyage in “Frequent Departure Flying at Day-Break.”
(Gnosis2000, 2008)
Elektriktus gets the sequencers going pretty early on, and there is usually a sense of patterning going on throughout. The synths often shimmer in the background, and as the album progresses, it seems to grow quieter and more meditative.
(Mutant Sounds, 2009)
One spends so much of one’s 20’s looking for music as mind-frying as possible (well, “one” does if “one” is “me”) — if only “one” had been able to find this record earlier on. Track 3, “Power Hallucination”, is pretty much the pinnacle of music-as-nightmarish-entrances-to-hell. No drugs necessary. The mystery of this band: I had an image of ten or twenty dudes in cloaks recording this in a chapel whilt wearing wire-rim glasses and slowly stroking their Fu Manchu beards.
(The Boston Phoenix 2008)
In hiding behind the name Elektriktus, Andrea Centazzo started a neat trend, copied by a multitude of other anonymous techno acts and dj’s… Put away those violins and hunt down a copy of ‘Electronic Mind Waves’ – a forgotten electronic gem that not only reflects the Italian craze for space synth, but also looks further north, doffing its cap to the genius of the electronic Krautrockers.
(suburbanbatherson- youtube.com 2008)
A NOTE FROM THE COMPOSER
It was the 70s and I was a young enthusiastic musician willing to experiment with all the ways to make music. While I was busy with my jazz percussionist career, at the same time I was attracted by the new electronic scene that was coming from Germany and England. With the first earnings from my concerts as a percussionist I bought one of the first four-track recorders and a couple of primitive keyboards. And in the silence of my recording studio in the small country village where I lived, I started to compose, play and record in multitrack. That’s how Elektriktus was born. At that time we didn’t have (and couldn’t even imagine!) computers with recording and editing programs or automatic loops, effects and samples. So, when I was free from traveling around the world, I spent months and months working in my studio. Making a 10-minute loop at the time meant… playing and overdubbing for 10 minutes!
Why was Elektriktus born? The producer of my first jazz LP, titled ICTUS, didn’t want 2 albums so different in style with the same artist name; so we went with Elektriktus (mixture of electronic and Ictus later also name of my future label and a series of percussion instruments that I invented), hoping that it could follow the very successful path of the much more famous German Cosmic Couriers.
But unfortunately due to a lack of promotion and bad distribution, the LP remained almost unknown and forgotten.
As naive as it may seem today, this was my first experiment in using acoustic instruments together with electronic ones in my musical space; a technique that is now highlighted in my latest multimedia concerts where I play acoustic percussions and a Kat Mallet (digital controller) connected to my Mac recalling in real time all the samples I previously recorded.
Few years ago I was absolutely amazed to discover that Elektriktus is now present on the web with 18,000+ pages and is considered the archetype of much of current electronic music. A sign that those were well planted seeds.
So I decided to re-release Elektriktus on CD and on LP in a limited edition, looking for a remastering as close to the original LP as possible. And compose new music that will be soon released as Elektriktus Vol. #2.
And this is followed by this live show in which I propose tunes from that time and new electronic compositions with the support of spectacular 4k videos.
Elektriktus (Andrea Centazzo)