Composer, improviser, field recordist, writer, occasional teacher, and self-described "new music rabble-rouser," Christopher De Laurenti's music is as polyvalent as his activities. It's hard to better his own description of his work. He writes, "My music, the offspring of my love affair with sound, incorporates murky atmospheres, unusual field recordings, everyday speech, and an array of instruments deployed in maniacal recombinant polyphony. I seek not only to capture the ordinary and extraordinary sounds of everyday life, but to bear witness to current crises that touch my conscience and impel me to respond." True to this intensely focused credo, De Laurenti's music shimmers and vibrates, energetically bristling with startling cuts and sudden shifts of mood and action. Unwilling to be confined to one of the many underground genres (field recordings, noise, acousmatique, lowercase sound, etc.) in electroacoustic music today, De Laurenti draws on the immense variety of sonic materials from celebratory parties ("The night I met Maria C_____", "At Stephie's", "Your 3 minute Mardi Gras" and untitled tracks on the "Sand Point Sound Gazetteer"), to political protests (his two colossal N30 works and "Two Secret Wars"), to the forbiddingly abstract sonic terrain heard in his collaborations with Artemiy Artemiev ("57 Minutes to Silence") and lowercase improvisations with "Rebreather", a duo with Alex Keller. Drastically deconstructed popular music ("Three Camels for Orchestra", "Day Ripper", "Sylvian's Wood" and "Cocaine")is a preoccupation, although a more indirect sonic appropriation appears in the background of many other later compositions ("Your 3 minute Mardi Gras" and "Adrift in NYC"). De Laurenti's chief work is "N30: Live at the WTO November 30, 1999" perhaps the most impassioned piece of "political" music since Luigi Nono's 1960s and 1970s compositions. By using vivid material directly connected with this tumultuous event, De Laurenti achieves what most "political" music fails to do, making the "message" into heart-stopping and unforgettable music. Due to his isolation in the Northwest United States and infrequent releases, De Laurenti is relatively unknown. One label described De Laurenti as "Seattle's odd man out" in the local experimental scene there, which, by virtue of the uncommon variety and boldness of his music, is true.

Freddie Brewer (via http://www.electroshock.ru/)