Oracle Column at Tapadum: Free-Form, Psychedelia, and the Santur

October 30 was unlike any other evening in the Tapadum concert series. No folk tradition, no classical repertoire, no defined cultural geography. Oracle Column brought something rawer and harder to categorise — and I played santur in the middle of it.

Fifteen people came. Forty-eight more had been thinking about it.

Oracle Column: What It Is

Oracle Column is a free-form ensemble co-created by Devid Ciampalini and Andrea Rusconi, with the active compositional and performative participation of Matteo Lenzi and Francesco Pellegrino. The project contemplates psychedelia, ethnic music, and musique concrète, drawing its vital energy from the inexhaustible source of free jazz.

The sonic architecture is built from layers of synthesizers and magnetic tape — electronic textures that shift and breathe beneath a heterogeneous array of acoustic instruments.

The lineup that evening:

• Matteo Lenzi — vibraphone, tam-tam (known from Calibro 35, Ninos du Brasil, C’mon Tigre, 7 e 40)
• Francesco Pellegrino — saxophone, clarinet (Double Exposure)
• Özgür Yalçın — santur
• Andrea Rusconi — electronic organ, synth (Paq, Augusto Ralla, Kwaku Kamaso)
• Devid Ciampalini — synth, tapes, qanun (Metzengerstein, New Jooklo Age, Luce Celestiale)

The Musicians

The individual members of Oracle Column arrive from some of the most interesting corners of the Italian independent music scene.

Matteo Lenzi is best known for his work with Calibro 35 — the Milan-based ensemble that reconstructed and reimagined the Italian crime film soundtrack tradition — and C’mon Tigre, whose genre-defying approach to Mediterranean music has found audiences far beyond Italy. His vibraphone and tam-tam bring resonance and weight to the ensemble’s texture.

Andrea Rusconi and Devid Ciampalini have between them released recordings on an extraordinary range of labels: Sonic Meditation, ZamZam Rec, Yerevan Tapes, Heimat Der Katastrophe, Hive Mind Records, Crash Symbols, and many others — a list that maps the international underground of experimental, drone, and improvised music with considerable accuracy.

The qanun in Devid Ciampalini’s hands — the large Middle Eastern plucked zither that sits at the heart of Turkish and Arab classical music — connects Oracle Column’s electronic experiments to the same modal tradition that the santur carries. That connection was not accidental.

The Santur in Free-Form

Playing santur with Oracle Column was a different experience from any other ensemble context I have worked in. The modal framework that normally guides the instrument’s role — the relationship to a tonal centre, the architecture of the maqam — dissolved. What remained was the santur’s physical sound: the shimmer of the hammers on the strings, the sustain, the overtone series that the instrument produces naturally.

In a free-form context, those qualities become the contribution. The santur does not need to be guided by a scale to be useful — its resonance sits inside whatever sonic space surrounds it and adds something that no electronic instrument can quite replicate.

Improvised, Then Rearranged

Oracle Column’s working method is worth noting. Their recorded output consists of improvised sessions that are subsequently rearranged and manipulated in post-production — a process that treats improvisation as raw material rather than finished product. What you hear in the room is not the album. What you hear in the room is where the album begins.

Past collaborators in their recording sessions have included Ariel Kalma, Pietro Santangelo, Michele Guglielmi, and Mario Marino — a roster that confirms the ensemble’s reach across experimental, world, and jazz-adjacent music.

Tapadum hosts concerts from across the musical spectrum. Explore our handcrafted instrument collection or follow our upcoming events.

Özgür Yalçın is the founder of Tapadum and the founding member of Karagüneş. He has performed ethnic and world music across Europe for over twenty-five years and builds custom instruments from Tapadum’s workshop in Brisighella, Italy.