Expand / To Feel Embraced
This time I’ve been expanding way beyond Italy – hence the title – and way beyond minimalist music. The mix opens with an excerpt from a live set by Mace, one of Italy’s most interesting urban producers. A hip-hop beat…
Avant-garde on the Balera: Franco Battiato’s Classical Contemporary
Franco Battiato is a balera singer turned avant-garde composer, and that’s precisely where the strength of his music lies. The Italian term balera doesn’t have a perfect equivalent in English: think of an unpretentious, all-ages working-class dance-hall, where people would…
Stefano Pio on Giusto Pio’s Motore Immobile
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…
Exploring Resonance: Minimalist Piano Works by Messina, Battiato and Pio
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…
Minimalismo Mediterraneo
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…