CLOCK DVA + PAOLO BERTONI :: A STUNNING REVIEW OF SECOND SIGHT BY STEFANO BIANCHI :: Blow Up #329 OCT 2025
ADI AND TEZ
Clock DVA
Second Sight • CD + Paolo Bertoni book Rizosfera • 11t-69:45
EXT Vol.1 • LP+CD Rizosfera • 7t-51:57
“The second youth of Adi Newton shows no sign of abating, thanks also and above all to the folks at the very Italian label Rizosfera, who have taken on the near-vital mission of organising and publishing the new and/or scattered catalogue of the English musician, who has been artistically linked to Maurizio “Tez” Martinucci for some time now. So here comes “Second Sight”, a long-announced but never materialised ‘lost album’ featuring music created by Clock DVA throughout the 2010s and not yet released in its entirety.
We are presented first and foremost with two previously unreleased tracks; the first is the semi-instrumental Arketechton, performed live years ago, then shelved and now recovered and refurbished as RE_Arketechton, a sort of subdued, ambient pocket calculator sound; the second is Amna (now RE_Amna), a cover of Pragma that Adi and Tez have practically adopted, taking us straight back to the magnificent times of “Buried Dreams”: electronics creating a formidable clash between glacially advancing rhythms, darting and fluttering keyboards seeking life, and Adi’s impassive recital that covers everything like a shroud. On the same line there is also RE_Rayonist, at once more feverish and enigmatic than Amna, which appeared on an American compilation and is taken from the 2014 album “Clock 2” (released in 2014 as a memory stick and the following year as a CD), and a new dance version of Kabaret13_Zvukopis_RMX, a curious variable that starts as techno and lands on house.
Finally, scattered tracks arriving from the two EPs Clock 2 (2015) and Neoteric (2016), from the album “Noesis” (2023) and others: the beautiful Endless which again harks back to “Buried Dreams” and the fractured The Konstructor which perhaps overuses autotune a bit, then Neoteric and Drive The Exotic Non-Essentials which lean into pressing, schizoid dance, the looming Sentinel and the solemn and mystic Immission which open like isolationist ambient and then progressively advance towards the usual glory, the oceanic and spatial expanse of The Simulacra, a perfect soundtrack for reading Philip K. Dick’s masterpiece. The CD edition also includes the adaptation/revision of our Director’s Cut that Paolo Bertoni wrote about Clock DVA, which for the occasion has been translated into English, a matter of pride for Paolo and, by extension, for all of us: an unmissable box set for sounds and words, to be placed among the very best of the Clock DVA brand. [8.3]
Simultaneously, Rizosfera also publishes “EXT Vol. 1”, a vinyl + CD reissue of the CD released last year (BUR313). Not much to add to the old review apart from applauding the splendid graphics: these are 2016 recordings made by the two musicians at the Elektronmusikstudion EMS in Stockholm with modular synthesizers (Buchla 200, Serge). The album is entirely instrumental and develops a series of improvised soundtracks with a pronounced space character, at times exploratory, at times bucolic, at times psychedelic (Thinking Mirrors, Falling Star, Second Window), which manage to converge gravitational force from alien universes (listen to the sounds becoming a frightening voice in the magnificent Pharmaceuticals or the profound black hole of The Black Corridor) or pay homage to the history of theme music (the alien techno of Time Whirlpools) up to the closing Meridians, a laid-back ambient piece that opens up to a welcoming deep space and, for once, poses no threats. [8.2]”
Stefano I. Bianchi (BLOW UP #329)
