Recorded live on October 27, 2023, during an experimental residency at Spazio Pontano 35 in Milan, this album captures a quintet of musical minds - Cristiano Bocci, Alessandro Ciccarelli, Andrea Fabris, Giovanni Falascone, and Alessandro Gambato - tinkering with sound like mad scientists in a lab of sonic potential.

The beauty of this release lies not only in its bold exploration of sound but in the delightful unpredictability of it all. The members of HUM, who originally connected virtually through the BlueRing Electronics project during the pandemic, came together to delve into a shared experiment in improvisation. What came from this is not just an album, but an unfolding journey of sound that is as surprising as it is captivating.

"Frame" opens the album with an intricate and experimental graphic score by Giovanni Sparano. The piece is a visual roadmap of sound, a map that each performer follows, armed with their own set of instructions, delivered via personal devices linked to Max/MSP (a powerful visual programming language for music and multimedia). The sectioned score guides each musician through permutations of prime numbers, creating a constantly shifting landscape of sound that feels more like a living, breathing entity than a structured composition. There’s a certain wonder to hearing something so dynamically evolving - a dance between spontaneity and algorithmic precision. It’s like watching an abstract painting unfold in real-time, each stroke and splatter of sound more captivating than the last.

"Improvvisazione", as the title suggests, is a free improvisation - a wild yet coherent journey through textures, rhythms, and tonalities. Here, the quintet’s ability to listen, respond, and create together is on full display. It’s an exploration of sound that might sound chaotic at first, but the more you tune into it, the more you realize that chaos has its own kind of logic - an organic flow where every discordant moment makes perfect sense in context. The musicians weave together electronic noises, acoustic bursts, and subtle sonic details in a way that feels like a conversation with no words, just pure sound. The pieces ebb and flow, always willing to veer into strange corners, before gently returning to the pulse of the group’s shared understanding.

Then, there’s "T.A.Z.", a graphic score inspired by Hakim Bey’s "The Temporary Autonomous Zone", a concept about creating spaces outside of traditional control - much like the music itself. The score provides a framework for exploration, but within that framework is the invitation to rebel, to step outside the constraints and chart new territory. Here, the ensemble dives into a world of relationships - between instruments, between players, and between sound and silence. It’s a piece that speaks to the anarchistic potential of music, where each note played is an act of liberation, a sonic protest against predictability.

What’s most remarkable about "Live in Milano" isn’t just the musicianship (which is, of course, exceptional) - it’s the group’s collective ability to embrace the unexpected. The interaction between live electronics, trombone, percussion, piano, and electric guitar creates a sonic landscape that feels as much about the "space" between sounds as the sounds themselves. The quintet plays with the subtle quiet, the buildup of tension, and the release in a way that makes the entire performance feel like an expansive conversation between each of the players and the audience.

The album never feels like a single, cohesive statement; rather, it’s an ongoing experiment - an open-ended exploration of sound that flirts with chaos, yet always returns to a sense of collective purpose. It’s the kind of music that invites the listener to let go of expectation and simply "experience" the unfolding moment. With its blending of graphic scores, algorithmic experimentation, and free improvisation, HUM creates a space where sound isn’t just something you listen to, but something you "feel", a living, breathing entity that evolves in front of you.