Question: when is a harp more than a harp? Answer: When it’s Kety Fusco’s harp. Out now on Floating Notes Records is the next chapter in a remarkable career that has recently brought Fusco rave reviews for a performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Strangely, though, she calls this release “THE HARP – Chapter 1” – although it is not at all the first record since her conversion from a harpist in the classical orchestral mode to the fearless experimenter she is now.

Recorded in a converted barn high up in the hills of Fusco’s home in the Italian part of Switzerland, “THE HARP – Chapter 1” moves on from her earlier trip-hoppy sound to a more experimental approach that reaches deeper into the realms of both, ambient textures and noise, whilst also, in a live context, adding an extra dimension with her stunning visuals. This is what Kety Fusco writes on her homepage about her approach:

“When I began my research into the contemporary sound of the harp, the first thing I did was to do the first think I wouldn’t do. From a harp, I took its composition and therefore: the gut of the strings, the metal of the mechanism and the wood of the structure. I sampled the sounds, searching for the essence of the raw material. The sounds obtained are mostly noises, which you are not used to hearing from a harp, yet it is always the harp that produced them. My soundtrack Music to make a dream come true is a demonstration of what a harp can do in the modern era, not just by taking the finished product, ie. the harp as a classical musical instrument, but by taking its detail. From the detail of a harp comes the vision of a new harp, capable of entering a new modern musical environment, which radically detaches it from its historical origins.”