On Monday, November 9, at the San Fedele Auditorium in Milan, the electronic music and audiovisual arts series Inner_Spaces—co-produced with Linecheck Music Meeting and Festival and in collaboration with Kadmonia—presents the preview of ANTICO. This project by Alfio Antico, Colapesce, and Mario Conte reinterprets materials from folk traditions and ancient repertoires as living, contemporary matter in an instrumental live performance of electronics and percussion. Opening the evening is Berlin-based composer Key Clef with a solo performance for modular synthesizer, conceived for spatialized sound diffusion.

ANTICO reworks materials drawn from the traditional repertoires of the Mediterranean and Southern Italy. The research of Alfio Antico, Lorenzo Urciullo (Colapesce), and Mario Conte does not aim for a philological reconstruction of historical sources, but rather for the reactivation of an archaic, popular memory through contemporary techniques of sound processing. Songs, acoustic instruments, and recorded materials are transformed into living matter, intertwining voice, electronics, sampling, and timbral layering. Their music is neither revival nor historical reenactment; it is a present-day traversal of a collective heritage, placing the past into new listening contexts while keeping its connection to traditional practices recognizable yet open to present-day modes of expression.

In the first part of the evening, Key Clef presents Mental Continuum, a quadraphonic experience where improvisation becomes an act of rebellion against the formalism of perfection and relentless performativity. Here, sound turns into a vehicle for communication—a stream of thought manifesting through vibration, movement, and harmony.

Within the quadraphonic dimension, this stream physically expands into the environment, heightening perception in a dynamic relationship between space, sound, and matter. Mental Continuum stems from a reflection on existence as perpetual motion: a primary source of ever-shifting energy, part of a broader vibration resonating through matter and the universe. The music becomes one of its possible voices, while improvisation embodies its unstable, organic, and unrepeatable nature. Live, modular synthesizers, analog effects, and the Roland TR-808 define a foundational part of Key Clef’s timbral and rhythmic components, merging sonic research, physicality, and spontaneity into a musical practice perpetually open to transformation.