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ANDREA BELFI biography
He was born in Verona in 1979. He started studying drums at the age of 14, and has featured in various punk/hardcore bands ever since.
Between 1998 and 2001 he lived in Milan where he attended Alberto Garutti's contemporary art course, who helped him develop a wider understanding of art.
In 2000 he co-founded Rosolina Mar, an instrumental rock trio, whose albums have been released by the Italian label Wallace Records. With this rock-band he toured around Italy, France and Spain, playing over 200 gigs.
In the meantime he studied elettroacustic composition and improvvisation.
In 2002 he self-produced, with his own label Chocolateguns, his first solo record “Ned n°2” , which received excellent reviews (The Wire, Bananafish).With the same label he produced in 2004 the band Kriminal Museum (Zeno de Rossi, Jamie Saft, Ted Reichman, Biggan Krauss).
He is a fouding member of Medves, which features also Giuseppe Ielasi, Francesco Dillon Wanke, Stefano Pilia and Renato Rinaldi. "Medves" LP was released in 2005 by Fringesrecordings.
Since 2003 Belfi has been developing a solo liveset, where he uses his drummer’s skills along with his long-time researches with electroacustic devices and synthezisers.
His second solo album “Between Neck & Stomach” was released in September 2006 by the swedish label Hapna. This album was well reviewed by magazines and net ’zines such as The Wire, Vital Weekly, Boomkat, All Music Guide. “The real victory of Belfi’s astonishing record is the ease of its cohabitation of melody and experiment. Few do it so well” (Jon Dale, December 2006, the Wire magazine) He has been touring along Europe presenting this album, with label mates and long time collaborators !hasbeeneliminated during 2006’s fall, playing in Stockholm, Paris, Gent, London, Geneva, Berlin and many other cities.
From 2005 he started a duo project named Christa Pfangen after Andy Warhol's muse Nico, featuring Andrea and the guitar player Mattia Coletti. Their album “Watch me getting back the end” entered in the list of the ten most listened records by The Wire magazine's staff in March 2007. Christa Pfangen played in Holland and Belgium and featured in the radio program Dwars for the Holland national broadcasting system VPRO.
From 2004 Andrea collaborates also with HomeMovies, an association which collects and re-assembles old family movies: Andrea's role, often along with Stefano Pilia, Xavier Garcia Bardon, Valerio Tricoli, is to play over these mute movies.
Between 2006 and 2008, Belfi conceived together with Mirco Santi, the project Stillivingrooms. Developing around a filmed room and a real room, overlapping conceptual and real elements that we find in a living space such as a flat, Stillivingrooms is a audio/visual event in between of a sound installations, a performance and a private screening of old private family films. It has been presented at Netmage Festival in Bologna (January 2008), and at the Claudio Buziol Foundation in Venice (May 2008),
His last solo record called “Knots”, recorded & produced by Giuseppe Ielasi, it has been released by Die Schachtel records. He performed it as a live set in Turin (Artissima 2007), Chicago (Lampo), Aalst (Netwerk), Bruxelles (Klara festival 2008), Stockholm (Ugglan Festival), Oslo (Spasibar) among others.
He was invited by three different arstist-in-residence programs: Harlem Studio Fellowship in New York City (April 2009), Hotel Pupik in Scheifling-Austria (August 2009), Q-O2 Werkplaats in Brussels, Belgium (October 2009). Here he's been developing his new solo live set.
In 2009 he's been focusing on new collaborative projects: a trio with american musician and sound art teacher David Grubbs (ex- Gastr del Sol, Bastro, Squirrel Bait) and Stefano Pilia (3/4hadbeeneliminated), a trio called "Il Sogno del Marinaio" together with Pilia and the electric bass legend Mike Watt (Minutement, Firehose, Iggy and the Stooges), a duo with the dutch musician Machinefabriek, a duo with german improviser Ignaz Schick (Zangimusic), a duo with electroacoustic composer and improviser Attila Faravelli, a tribute to the american percussionist and composer Moondog, the trio Hobocombo.
Andrea's constant concern and interest, as one can clearly see from the whole of his work, is the live and performative moment.
He played and collaborated also with Damo Suzuki, Tony Conrad, Rhys Chatham, Marina Roselfeld, Giuseppe Ielasi, !hadbeeneliminate, Nicola Ratti, Dean Roberts, Paul Baran, Jeffrey Alexander (Black Forest/Black Sea), Atelier MTK (Metamkine), Zimmerfrei, Å, Benjamin Francart, Claudio Rocchetti, Alessandro Bosetti, Xabier Iriondo, Renato Rinaldi, Larkin Grimm.
Main festival e performance:
•Netmage Festival 10, Bologna - January 2010 •Collateral Festival, Cesena - November 2009 •Jesus Club, Berlin - November 2009 •Vooruit, Gand - April 2009
•Issue Project Room, Brooklyn / New York - April 2009 •Klarafestival, Brussells - September 2008 •Fondazione Claudio Buziol, Venice - May 2008 •Ugglan Festival, Stockholm, May 2008
•Lampo, Chicago - April 2008 •Netmage Festival 8, Bologna - January 2008 •Art Fall, Ferrara - October 2008 •Artissima Festival, Turin - November 2007 •Sherwood Festival, Padua - July 2007 •De Sonis, London - October 2006 •Festival Strade Blu, Faenza - June 2006 •Musica nelle Valli, Modena - May 2004
Selected Discography:
•Belfi/Grubbs/Pilia trio "Onrushing Cloud" LP+DL (coming soon on Blue Chopsticks 2010) •Neimeyer "for trampoline" CD (coming soon on Die Schachtel 2010) •Andrea Belfi/Ignaz Schick "the myth of persistence of vision" CD (coming soon on Zarek 2010) •Andrea Belfi/Alessandro 'Asso' Stefana, "fluorescent pigs", 10" split -with Carla Bozulich & Nels Cline- (coming soon on
Phonometak series 2010) •Andrea Belfi “Knots”, CD (Die-Schachtel 2008) •Christa Pfangen, “watch me getting back the end”, CD (Die-Schachtel 2007) •Andrea Belfi, “Rib” in Aa/Vv “Crows fo the world” double CD (Last Visibile Dog 2005) •Andrea Belfi, “Between Neck & Stomach”, CD (Hapna 2006) •Andrea Belfi/Stefano Pilia, “Cuora Yuannanenis” in Aa/Vv “Invisibile Pyramid:Elegy Box” 6CD-BOX (LastVisibileDog
2005) •Medves, “lives in Medves”, LP (Fringes recordings 2004) •Andrea Belfi, “Ned n°2”, CD-R (Chocolateguns 2001)
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