Marta Salogni and Stefano Pilia’s Phren is music of accretion. Inputs are fed through Pilia’s chain of filters and tape echo and on into Salogni’s Revox reel-to-reel tape machine for further manipulation and modulation, the signals absorbing new layers and mutations as they go. According to the release notes, that initial input is often Pilia’s guitar, but the pair’s plastic approach to sound makes that far from obvious. They telescope the act of mediation, mottling, shading and bending signals as they pass from sound source to ears.
‘Sopra l’acque scavate’ opens with distorted notes sparking like a frosty firework display. The more your ears focus, the more ambiguous those notes become. The attack and decay seem awry for a guitar, the timbre too guitar-y…
Tag Archive: Stefano Pilia
You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please Log In.
Stefano Pilia is an experimental musician with the bona fides to prove it. In the aughts, he was the guitarist in Il Sogno del Marinaio, an out trio with luminary punk bassist Mike Watt and drummer Andrea Belfi. Recently Pilia has instead been focusing on neoclassical compositions.
Some have been with his group Minimalist Dream House Quartet and the Labéque sisters, a piano duo that frequently performs twentieth century and new music. Pilia’s latest longform piece, Lacinia (“lace”) uses minimalist tropes in a large circular form. Different ensembles participate in Lacinia’s sections, treating material held in common to varying presentations.
Its recording is two-channel, but the production provides the spaciousness that Pilia envisioned…
You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please Log In.