Giusto Pio’s Motore Immobile began to gain wider recognition when Alan Licht included it in the third instalment of his Minimalist Lists in 2007. Originally released in 1979 and reissued by Soave only in 2017, the album has since earned…
On a trip to Ohio in August 1949, Barnett Newman had the chance to visit the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in the southwest of the state. Located along the Ohio River, these monumental earthen mounds served as ceremonial sites for the…
Magna Graecia was the name given to the southern Italian territories colonised by the Greeks around the 8th century BC. Having found myself listening to a lot of Greek experimental music, from my favourite Cypriot minimalist Evagoras Karageorgis to Tasos…
In a wake-up call to his fellow downtown musicians published in EAR Magazine in 1978, No Wave composer Rhys Chatham weighed in on the state of what he dubbed post ‘60s traditionalist music: In the past 10 years or so…
Tracklist Giusto Pio – ‘Motore Immobile’ (Motore Immobile, Cramps 1979) Alvin Curran – excerpt from Side A (Canti e Vedute del Giardino Magnetico, Ananda 1975) Lino Capra Vaccina – ‘Canti delle Sfere’ (Antico Adagio, Nō 1978) Luciano Cilio – ‘Primo…
I first discovered Claudio Rocchi through my father’s vinyl collection, which featured his Il Volo Magico N. 1 LP as one of his most prized possession. As a small-town hippy and prog enthusiast teenager in the early 70s, my father…
The term Mediterranean Minimalism describes Kenthmata quite literally, as this record by Cypriot composer Evagoras Karageorgis applies the minimalist tropes of loops and repetition to traditional Greek melodies and rhythms. This simple but very effective formula is inscribed in the…
In his collection of music writings Quasi una Fantasia Adorno describes the melancholic radiance of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana by comparing it to the dazzlingly white villas of the Italian southern coast: Migrants who go to the Argentine from Southern Italy…
Prati Bagnati Del Monte Analogo [The Wet Meadows Of Mount Analogue] by Lovisoni & Messina is the record that inspired me to start Mediterranean Minimalism. For me, minimalism a là Mediterranea describes a gentler version of American repetitive music, less…
Virtually unknown outside of Italy and a small circle of avant-garde aficionados, violinist and composer Giusto Pio revolutionised Italian pop together with Franco Battiato and wrote beautiful pages of experimental music in his solo works, from his essential take on…