"My archive of sound recordings began to assume an increasingly important role in the ’80s when I started collecting and documenting in a somewhat systematic way a growing number of audio cassettes. Initially there wasn’t yet a proper musical perspective in the recordings I was making, but both a playful aspect on the one hand and a documentary approach on the other prevailed. In fact a process of sound investigation had started. At the same time, all over the world, and unbeknownst to me, a network later known as Cassette Culture, using the tape as a vehicle of exchange at various levels, was already widespread. I gradually met with this tape network thanks also to names like MB, Ramleh etc., but only with the release of my first music cassette (Putrefazione e Catarsi, 1984) I somehow began to be part of that mechanism.

 

The focus of attention, the subject which I am writing about here, however, is Autofonìa, a cassette self- released in 1986. With it the sound investigation reached a further stage. The turning point came with the purchase of the Tascam 244, embodying my first “real” concept of a recording studio and moreover a “portable” one. Field recording was already a practice of mine but being able to record and mix in the field at the same time was an absolute novelty. Meanwhile I discovered the trilogy of Amok (cf. Enrico Piva, Anticlima, spazio di Hausdorff, 2019) which I found unexpectedly familiar (it is no coincidence that he will later also become a dear friend of mine) for the use he made of the recordings, the speech segments, the sonic documents that he incorporated into his sound structures in a perfectly musical context.

 

All this ideally reignited the potential of my own archive as well! It was as if it opened a path by entitling me to use certain extra-musical sources as well as encouraging me towards typically analog techniques that I already knew but had never exploited in terms of composition. My so-called “private collection” is akin to a “place” that I happen to visit from time to time. Having done it also on the occasion of this reissue allowed me to re-read the entire project. In addition to the original master tapes and tracks, I found a whole series of alternative takes that reminded me of what could also have been Autofonìa. I took this opportunity to make a careful selection, included in the special edition of this reissue. This is a juvenile experience but full of intuitions and seeds. I would say that it represents a sort of milestone towards what will be the further development of my sound research." - Massimo Toniutti