Following on from their release of Mutazione, the excellent compilation of underground Italian electronic and new wave music released in the 80s, following Italy’s violent ‘Years of Lead’ upheaval, Strut Records have put together a short documentary featuring interviews with two members, Vittore Baroni and Massimo Giacon, of TRAX, a DIY collective that were a key part of that scene.
The group produced an album entitled Traxtra, made out of 2" reel-to-reel tapes mailed around the network of members.
As the album’s compiler Alessio Natalizia of Walls told us in his feature introducing Mutazione: "TRAX was an incredible organisation; they were a networking project with different centres and no fixed geographical base, with over 500 members spread across Europe.
"Inspired by the Fluxus group and artist magazines like Aspen and Geiger, TRAX was a modular system with infinite compositions where each member (called Units) generated "trax" that would be coordinated by a ‘Central Unit’ with a variable number of participants called ‘Peripheral Units’.
"The Traxtra LP predates file exchange as a work method, being entirely made up of tracks that had been recorded and exchanged via mail between musicians in the collective. The internet before the internet."
Have a watch of the video above and following that, read our review of Mutazione and get hold of the compilation over at the label’s website.
