Sound Reporters
Sound Reporters is an Amsterdam-based tape label ran by 3 people related with the Institute of Sonology. it is a research, production and publishing company specialized in anthropology, ethnomusicology, religion, travel and history. It is also a long-standing radio broadcaster and dealer in second hand books, vinyl, art and handwoven textiles. Sound Reporters strongly believes in the importance of human cultural diversity and the need to document, protect and share this diversity in culture, knowledge, beliefs and creativity. Now part of the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Core members: Fred Gales, Walter Maioli, Etto Krijger.
Back in 1965 to late 80s in Utrecht met the anthropologist Fred Gales with the post-Aktuala musician Walter Maioli.The latter moving away from his interest in pan-Mediterranean folk and onto the depths of Paleolithic. Gales had agenda of fusing the "primitive" with electronic as various types of global tribal music with the focal point on the sound itself. Most 'primitive' music is rooted in animism, social purpose, and functionality and is in contrast to individualistic, quasi-scientific aura of state-funded, academia-based early electronic music studios. Gales and Maioli met later Raffaele Serra and got involved in the famous artistic squat "The End Of The World" based in Amsterdams harbour. Some of their tapes are later vinyl'ised by courtesy of the Black Sweat label.
Fred Gales is a broadcaster, anthropologist, audio archeologist and sound expert. Sound Reporters issued the incredible collaboration between Pit Piccinelli, Fred Gales, and Walter Maioli, Amazonia 6891, reissued by Black Sweat in 2016.
Walter Maioli (1950) is an Italian researcher, paleorganologist, poly-instrumentalist, flutist, composer. An eclectic figure, a global innovator, for more than 50 years he has been dealing with the music of nature, prehistory, antiquity and electronics. Member and leader of groups like Aktuala, Futuro Antico, Art Of Primitive Sound, Synaulia and many others. He is specialized in experimental archaeology and music, in particular that of archaic civilization. Always interested in the music of the Mediterranean, he has gone on journeys to discover the folkloristic Italian and Mediterranean traditions learning the Arabic, African, Oriental, and European music since the beginning of the seventies. In 1972 he founded the pioneer world music group Aktuala group, dedicated to folkloristic African and Asian music. In the eighties Walter Maioli's researches focused on the field of prehistoric instruments, his work was presented at the Archaeological Symposium of Amsterdam for the opening of the Den Haag Museum in The Hague. In 1987 he prepared the Natural Art Laboratory of Morimondo in the Ticino Park, working on the Art of the Nature, publishing books on the subject for the Jaca Book: "Origins, sounds and music", and for Giorgio Mondadori: "Orchestra of the Nature".
In 1991 he displayed the collection called "The Origins of Musical Instruments" to the History of Nature Museum in Milan and presented "Art of the Stars" sounds for the planetarium, at Ulrico Hoelpi Civic Planetarium in Milan in collaboration with Fiorella Terenzi. Starting in 1994, for one and a half years he was coordinating the musical part of the Archeon Archaeological Theme Park in Alphen aan den Rijn in the Netherlands, producing the CD called "200.000 years in music".
In 1995 he founded Synaulia, a team of musicians, archeologists, paleorganologists, and choreographers dedicated to the application of their historical research to ancient music and dance, in particular to the ancient Etruscan and Roman periods, carrying out an intense activity of conferences, seminars, and concerts in Europe, in particular in the Netherlands and Germany. In Italy, some of his performances were presented on archaeological sites such as Mausoleo di Augusto, Mercati Traianei, Terme di Diocleziano, Ostia Antica, Villa Adriana, Preneste, Pompei and Stabia, with the scope of recreating the sound atmosphere and executive context of the Roman age. When Michael Hoffman, chose the Synaulia group to participate in the shooting of the movie A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1998, Walter Maioli took care of the reproduction of the musical instruments. In 2007 Walter Maioli with the Fondazione Ras has started the laboratory "Synaulia in Stabiae" in Castellamaare di Stabiae.