Swept away on a boat off the Sicilian coastline, we recount through words and images the Ortigia’s instalment of gggglllloooossssaaaa, an itinerant interdisciplinary venture, which jointly with CAM Sugar has celebrated the island’s soundscape.

ggggllloooossssaaaa is the condensation of synchronicities initiated on a windy and rainy evening around Spring Street (NYC). The first time I entered the Ear Inn, I didn’t know what I was looking for: someone told me there was a listening session of the record label Recital, but that was all I knew. As I had some time before going to see the S.E.M Ensemble at the Paula Cooper Gallery, I decided to give it a try. The only thing I could see upon entering the bar was people chatting in front of beers, surrounded by ear-inspired posters, drawings, and objects on the walls and ceiling.

When I asked around for the listening session, nobody seemed to know anything. “Since you are here, why don’t you sit down and have a drink with us?” asked the bartender. I ordered a Bloody Mary, and a few minutes later, a man in his sixties wearing a captain’s cap came towards me: “I’ve heard you are looking for the listening session. It’s upstairs, follow me.”

That’s how I met Rip (Hayman) — founder of the Ear Magazine, which was active between 1975 and 1991 and initially co-edited with Laurie Spiegel, organizer of the first sleeping concerts, Dreamsound, in the mid-80s, and an affiliate of The Land with John Cage, John Lennon, David Tudor, and a catalyst for endless pioneering experiments in Downtown New York. We sat in the living room and listened to Recital’s records (among which was his “Dreams of India & China”) on the Ear Up! surrounding sound system conceived with Charlie Morrow. While browsing through the Ear Magazine’s archive, I listened to stories about Laurie Anderson, Allen Ginsberg, Queen Latifah, Yoko Ono, Julius Eastman, and Meredith Monk doing their thing at the Ear Up!.

Rip lived upstate with his wife Barbara Pollitt, and I was soon offered hospitality in the legendary apartment in ‘exchange’ for reactivating the space and curating a series of salons over the weekend. That was the start of ggggllloooossssaaaa, a series of interdisciplinary happenings or ‘widespread onomatopoeic ventures’ conceived on the paper cloth of the Ear Inn’s table on Christmas Day while drinking a beer with Farid, who then became the graphic designer I designed the artworks with. 

ggggllloooossssaaaa was born as a simple formula that could be replicated and adapted to different contexts and cities with the aim to: decontextualize the experience of music and performance from codified venues; educate the public to the unknown, intimacy, and being out of their comfort zone (in the most comfortable of places: a house); work with artists whose practice is based around language and presence and invite them to do whatever they wanted; involve different local communities and thus be transversal to ‘scenes’; and eventually to do something that every time has been a gift for all people involved.

Since its inception in January 2023, the project has traveled from New York to Milan, Rome, Berlin, Palermo, Athens, London, and Ortigia over twelve episodes involving incredible artists, writers, cultural platforms, curators, chefs, wine producers, labels, record collectors, radios, and sonic archeologists.

Among these was CAM SUGAR, the invited label for the listening station of ggggllloooossssaaaa’s twelfth episode, which took place on a boat (La Barca) in Sicilian waters in collaboration with the Ortigia-based cultural organization Kadmonia. The listening station, integral to every episode, is a way to present specific sonic research through the format of long listening: letting the album play from start to finish on one record player. No remixes or overdubs, just a narrative mosaic, whether it be an acapella performance or setting up a table with Kiki’s Cucumber Bombs. Nothing is announced or introduced (we used to do post-introductions, but eventually we stopped doing that as well). There is no timeline besides the request to enter within 30 minutes from the starting hour, after which the doors ‘close’. There is no coming and going, popping by, or checking it out (to reassure you, one is free to leave if they want). ggggllloooossssaaaa is an invitation to commit to curiosity for four hours. The approach to the involved contributors and collaborators is based on intuition, conversation, and shared excitement about the possibility of experimenting in a context void of expectations.

For ggggllloooossssaaaa in Ortigia, CAM SUGAR realised a composition titled Trinakie Bathing Suites, an excursus through their catalogue of Italian cinema and composers, which between the 1960s and 1970s represented the Sicilian landscape through soundtracks and library music. And so, while looking at the sun setting down in the bay of Ortigia with a view of the Castello Maniace, a soothing mix of Mediterranean folk and experimentation sonorized Sicilian longing, the island’s mystery and suspension through records such as Ennio Morricone’s “Il clan dei siciliani,” Stefano Liberati’s “Pericolo negli abissi,” Piero Umiliani’s “Bianco giallo rosso rosa,” or the seductive soundtrack by Piero Piccioni for Lina Wertmüller’s “Travolti da un insolito destino nell’azzurro mare d’agosto.”

Each ggggllloooossssaaaa aims at telling a story about the landscape it takes place in. Intertwining with CAM SUGAR’s catalog, performer Giorgia D’Acquisto presented an excerpt of her new piece, Impalpabile, a tantalizing interpretation of feminine emancipation, alongside Peppe QBeta playing a self-made pipe-like instrument, actress Giulia Messina (affiliate of the National Institute of Ancient Drama) gave her own interpretation of “La canzone delle cose morte” by Ettore Petrolini, and Gaspare Balsamo deployed his unique mastery as a cuntista (a specific kind of storytelling he learned from the legendary Italian puppeteer and actor Mimmo Cuticchio), blending different uses of his voice recounting Colapesce’s adventures accompanied by Giovanni Arena’s minimalistic double bass chords. Given the project’s emphasis on presence and penchant for hints rather than histories, I’d rather not say much more, allowing the fantasy to evolve alongside the memories of that afternoon…

Opening image: gggglllloooossssaaaa x CAM Sugar on La Barca, Ortigia. Photography by Germano Centorbi.