Stefano Pilia & Valerio Tricoli - Cantor Park (IMP079)
*Pre-Order* ships March 24th 2023.
300 copies, 75 on LTD Edition Blue Vinyl.
Sometimes records just vibrate with a magical aura propagating endless energy and timeless positionment. Stefano Pilia & Valerio Tricoli have been maestros in their respective careers when it comes to dancing between modern concrete, unimagined landscapes and electroacoustic experiments slowly creating and almost hand-sculpting two of the most singular paths in the European avant garde scene.
After their long tenure in experimental collective 3/4HadBeenEliminated (Häpna, Die Schachtel, Black Truffle) the two musicians reunited for ‘Cantor Park’ a new voyage that heightens their previous experience of instrumental improvisation, electroacoustic techniques and contemporary psychedelia. Inspired by the work of German mathematician Georg Cantor and his theorization of the infinite, the album was recorded for the influential Bologna cultural organization Xing during the second pandemic lockdown with an unusual setting: Pilia playing live with his collection of modulars and guitars and reacting to Tricoli’s revox tape machine dense manipulations. The material then moved from Bologna to Munich where Tricoli’s electronic processing completed the haunting sonic map. One of their most spontaneous pieces of work ‘Cantor Park’ travels through different infinities painting visceral and elegiac possibilities that perfectly match Pilia’s constant search for spiritual romantic and Tricoli’s austere meditations. Worlds falling into other worlds, frame narratives that open new dialogues and anticipate different perspectives, an amusement park where the sacred doors are always open: Cantor Park.
Stefano Pilia is a guitar player and composer born in Genoa and based in Bologna. His work has become progressively concerned with researching the sculptural properties of sound as well as sound’s relationship with space, memory and the suspension of time. Pilia explores these points of focus through instrumental practice and investigations into the recording and production process. He is one of the founding members (alongside Valerio Tricoli and Claudio Rocchetti) of the seminal group 3/4HadBeenEliminated, a project that synthesises improvisational, electro-acoustical and avant-rock sensibilities.
Pilia predominantly plays as a soloist though collaborates extensively. though his multifaceted practice has also led to an active involvement in a host of other wide-ranging projects. Since 2010 Pilia has been a member of psychedelic quartet In Zaire and has been a focal contributor to the BGP trio, alongside David Grubbs and Andrea Belfi. Additionally, since 2009, Pilia has been a member of il Sogno del Marinaio, a trio made up of legendary Minutemen bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen). He plays in a duo with guitarist Alessanda Novaga, with John Duncan, in a trio with Anthony Pateras and Riccardo La Foresta and with the violinist Silvia Tarozzi quintet. As well as these myriad projects, Pilia is lead guitarist for celebrated Malian singer Rokia Traorè (since 2012) and for the longstanding cult Italian bands Afterhours (since 2015) and Massimo Volume (2008-2016)
In an impressive range of work and different contexts Pilia has collaborated with several artists and musicians such as Katia and Marielle Labeque, Adrian Utley, David Tibet, Zu, Oren Ambarchi, John Parish, Fire Orchestra!, Angela Bullock, Oliver Mann, Gianluigi Toccafondo, Laura Agnusdei, WuMing, Phill Niblock, Z’ev, Manuel Mota, Enrico Malatesta, David Maranha & Dean Roberts. His discography currently stands at over forty recordings and his work has been released on a number of well established record labels.
Valerio Tricoli is an Italian composer and performer of electro-acoustic music, born in Palermo and currently residing in Munich. Since the mid ’00 his main instruments for live presentations is the Revox B77 reel-to-reel tape recorder, used as a completely analogue, ergonomic device for live sampling and real-time transformation, editing and mixing of pre-recorded (field or studio recordings) and made-on-the-spot sound sources. On a formal level his sets focus on the impromptu creation of a narrative which takes into account the multiple relations intervening between reality, virtuality and memory during the acoustic event: sounds are always hovering between the ‘here and now’ of the concert situation and the shady domain of memory, distant but at the same time present like in a deja-vu experience. Privileging fracture over continuity and by the use of a dynamic range that could often jump suddenly from near-silence to extreme blasts of sounds, an almost tactile feeling of brooding tension is often attained. His electro-acoustic studio compositions, documented on few records, are aligned to the tradition of Musique Concrète and explore themes of the internal and of the occult, which together with the large use of spoken text makes them often deeply existential works. He is a founding member of the italian avant-rock group 3/4HadBeenEliminated and has been working extensively with Thomas Ankersmit, Antoine Chessex, Werner Dafeldecker, Anthony Pateras. He has released sound works with PAN, Die Schachtel, Formacentric, Dilemma Records, Bowindo.
