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I Dormienti is an ambient installation album from British musician Brian Eno, released in 1999. It is also the title of an art-book by Eno and Italian artist Mimmo Paladino, released in 2000, packaged with a copy of the album and featuring pictures & sketches of the Roundhouse Installation.

Track listing

1. I Dormienti - 39:40

Overview

An Opal release, with no catalogue number, this title is only available from EnoShop.

The music on the album is taken from an Installation—a show featuring music and visuals—that took place at the undercroft of the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, Camden, London, from 9 September to 6 October 1999.

The event featured the work of Italian painter, sculptor and set designer Mimmo Paladino, who became established in the early 80's as one of the main exponents of the so-called Transavanguardia, a form of Neo-expressionism and Lyrical Abstraction. This was the second of his exhibitions; the first did not feature Eno's collaboration.

His exhibition was in the form of drawings and terracota sculptures - about 30 reclining figures with about 20 attendant crocodiles he called I Dormienti, "The Sleepers". The publicity notice said of it "In the centre of a labyrinth of tunnels, Paladino will create an installation of primordial life forms that will be accompanied by Eno's unique sound and light production".

Actually, Eno had nothing to do with the lighting; illumination was provided by the venue's dim emergency lights which imparted a pallor to the sculptures and drawings. The music came from well-concealed speakers and consisted mainly of a three-note Neroli-esque sequence, and electronic noise. In his recent Installations at Bonn and Amsterdam, stories spoken very slowly, one or two words at a time, were used in the performance, and here the method was developed further with treated, sampled voices speaking in syllables - an idea which would be used in his next album, Kite Stories.

The material condensed onto the album in a single track consists of ten or so layers of the aforementioned syllables, speech excerpts, the standard Eno treated piano, and various drones and echoes.

The book

The book was edited by Demetrio Paparoni and published by Alberico Cetti Serbelloni Editore of Milan, in 2000, ISBN 88-88098-00-3. Two editions were printed:

• A presentation-boxed luxury edition of a print-run of 2000.
• A 100-copy special edition accompanied by an aquatint etching with drypoint and presented in a fired terracotta case, both designed by Paladino.

It features a five-colour "pentachrome" printing-process, 250 gram card stock, silk screen printed cloth cover, protective sleeve, monochrome and colour photographs by Peppe Avallone of the Roundhouse exhibition, sketches by Paladino and Eno, a dialogue between the two artists, and the text is in Italian and English. 108 pages, 121⁄4 × 121⁄4 inches.

The CD is also included, with a different label to the album.

References

1. https://www.allmusic.com/album/r549362

External links

• Three I Dormienti sculptures by Mimmo Paladino .... 1, 2, 3
• Collage
• Hyperreal Eno bibliography
• Information about Mimmo Paladino .... 4, 5, 6, 7
• Beep discography entry
• Discogs.com entry
• James Putnam Roundhouse review
• Roundhouse homepage

• Pages with empty short description
• Brian Eno albums
• 1999 albums