Aldinucci & Uggeri - The Promise of a Threat
In 'The Promise of a Threat', two veteran composers of ambient and electroacoustic music - Giulio Aldinucci and Matteo Uggeri - converge on a collaborative terrain that is at once intimate and immense, reflective and unsteady, beautiful and unsettling.
Created between June 2021 and early 2022, and mastered by Aldinucci in 2025, the album stands as a slow-burning document of digital and emotional correspondence. It reflects the language of ambient music not as static wallpaper, but as a deeply expressive form - one that allows silence and signal, memory and disturbance, to coexist within the same fragile space.
A Digital Dialogue Across Distance...
The entire work emerged through remote exchanges between Aldinucci (based in Siena, Italy) and Uggeri (Milan, Italy), unfolding gradually through shared sessions, sketches, and iterations over time. The process was not unlike the movement of tectonic plates - imperceptible at first, yet with weight and intention. Layers of processed field recordings, abstracted rhythms, and spectral textures accumulate into dense yet transparent forms. Every detail is traceable, yet elusive.
Giulio Aldinucci, known for his deeply spatial drones and sensitive treatment of field material, builds immersive sonic beds that seem to hover just above the surface of the Earth - simultaneously grounded in place and untethered from time. Matteo Uggeri, by contrast, applies a more tactile touch: assembling beats, samples, and environmental recordings into patterns that give pulse and tension to the atmosphere.
Together, their styles intersect in subtle and surprising ways - sometimes bleeding into one another, at other times standing apart in contrast. The balance between order and entropy, harmony and noise, creates a dynamic that speaks to the album’s title: The Promise of a Threat. Beauty does not arrive alone. It is always shadowed by its inverse.
Processes of Presence and Absence...
Across the album’s runtime, the listener is drawn through zones of dissolving melody and shadowy rhythm, passing through spaces that feel neither entirely natural nor entirely artificial. A drum sample on Track 2, provided by Andris Brinkmanis, adds a skeletal percussive element - a quiet agitation beneath the calm. The rhythms are not dominant but suggestive, like distant industrial echoes or memories of forgotten structures.
The artists manipulate the digital medium not as a tool of perfection, but of erosion and transformation. Hiss is preserved. Glitches are welcomed. The human ear remains present in every detail. The processing - granular, filtered, stretched - is not ornamental but fundamental, a way of sculpting emotion out of signal. Field recordings are often submerged, embedded beneath layers of drones and rhythms, yet their presence adds a layer of organic residue - a trace of wind, rust, or breath beneath the circuitry.
A Tactile Offering...
True to the ethos of Fluid Audio, the physical release of The Promise of a Threat will be crafted with great care and material sensitivity. Expect a limited, hand-assembled edition that honours the intimacy and intricacy of the music - an object to be held, as much as heard. Full packaging details and release date will follow.
For now, The Promise of a Threat lingers just at the edge of hearing - like the low hum of an incoming storm, or the quiet reassurance of knowing something is coming, even if its shape remains undefined.
Credits:
Composed and mixed by Giulio Aldinucci and Matteo Uggeri
Giulio Aldinucci: drones, field recordings, electronic
Matteo Uggeri: beats, samples, field recordings
Drum sample on 2 provided by Andris Brinkmanis
Made between June 2021 and early 2022
Mastered by Giulio Aldinucci in 2025
Design by Daniel Crossley