Journeys in Sound & Music
Collaborations between artists can be planned, but the kind of sweet serendipity that makes them magical cannot. It either happens or it doesn’t. The idea of Italian pianist & composer Bruno Bavota making an album with Dutch singer & musician Chantal Acda certainly had the potential to be a magical one. Bavota is known for…
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L’ansia che cura, or ‘ the anxiety that cures’, is the paradoxical title of an absorbing new long form composition by Sardinian musician – and founder of rohs! records – Andrea Porcu under the moniker of Music For Sleep. It is an abstract meditation on a difficult period of his life during which he feels…
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For her 2021 opus Muqataea, Italian composer & violinist Francesca Guccione blended strings with synths, beats, and audio samples to present a vibrant neoclassical vision of her Sicilian hometown of Modica.The title of the album is a word which means county in Arabic, a nod to the region’s history prior to being established as a…
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After spending the last few years honing his skills as a composer for film and conductor of orchestral music, Francesco Berta returns to his primary instrument of the piano for a new solo release on the 1631 Recordings imprint. Entitled Between Lives, the idea behind the album is that of transition and new beginnings. It…
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Living with her family in an old, remote farmhouse in the rural Marche region of Eastern Italy, nestled in between the Appenine Mountains and the Adriatic Sea, Olivia Belli takes inspiration from the natural world and the people surrounding her. Though she expresses that she cannot remember a time in her life without music and…
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Italian born music composer, pianist and visual artist Francesco Berta is someone whose work I’ve enjoyed admiringly since the early days of the blog. He was in fact one of the very first artists I had the pleasure of interviewing when the Duologues series was launched a little less than four years ago (read the…
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Since taking the first musical ride with him on Line B of Rome’s subway system with his 2014 release Metrophony (Time Released Sound), I have been enjoying the evocative themes and soundscapes created by Francesco Giannico. A web designer and videographer as well as a sound artist with a thesis on the history of film…
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As I prepare this interview for publication, it is an unseasonably mild Sunday afternoon in January. The windows are cracked open to let in a rejuvenating breeze and to complete the illusion of spring, a lively pas de deux between piano and violin pirouettes in the air. The instruments belong to American composer & multi-instrumentalist…
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The days are growing shorter and the last leaves of autumn are fading embers that will soon disappear. The transition of fall into winter seems especially dispiriting in a pandemic year, but there is still comfort and consolation in the anodyne effects of music. The six albums that comprise this journey come from artistic voices…
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Stationary Travels 