ANDREA BELFI SOLO

In his live set AB faces the audience with an essential drum set, surrounded by synthesizers, a loop station, some contact microphones, an harmonica and two small-size speakers.
The acoustic elements and the electronic ones mingle, intertwine and sometimes switch places: the acoustic sounds are treated as they were electronic, and the actual electronic ones are played at the very moment.
Rhythmic patterns go beyond the mere beat as AB shapes them in cycles, ever-circling but ever-changing, both reassuring and surprising.
A careful preparatory work, which consists in a previous and much reflected upon selection of emotional scenarios, allows the live set to be spontaneous and to “live the moment”, definitively avoiding any over-conceptualization. AB main achievement is the building of “proper” songs through a radical improvisation rather than through the use of fixed and codified elements.

see also Andrea's myspace
and on youtube

BELFI/GRUBBS/PILIA TRIO

David Grubbs: guitar, piano, voice
Stefano Pilia: guitar
A.B.:drums, percussion, electronics

David Grubbs (Gastr Del Sol, Bastro, Squirrel Bait), Stefano Pilia (3/4hadbeeneliminated, Blind Jesus) and Andrea Belfi met in NYC on March 2009.
Grubbs' trademark guitars, piano chords and vocal tunes are melted with Belfi's suspended polyrhythms of his drums and electronic devices and with Pilia's beautiful drony and estatic sounds.
The result of their collaboration are rich and charming electroacoustic pieces they composed after long improvisations.

David Grubbs myspace
Stefano Pilia myspace

IL SOGNO DEL MARINAIO

Mike Watt: bass & voice
Stefano Pilia: guitar
A.B.: drums

"il sogno del marinaio - "the sailor's dream" is the name I picked for this collaboration w/musicians stefano pilia and andrea belfi and why did I pick it? first off, it's in italian and this important cuz it's the first time I collaborate w/artists from that land and also in their land (by the way, my ma's people come from italy). I am the son of a sailor and so you now a little about both my parents! my first time playing in italy was in 1983 and I've done lots of gigs since but never like this, collaborating w/her native sons. I am intrigued by the works of both stefano and andrea and am quite interested in sailing their seas of music and how they merge w/mine. I think I learn more about myself this way, that is my dream - and to do the best I can for them. I feel for me it's a voyage back home in a trippy sense, a sailor's dream of discovery through connections that baffle linear thinking...that is part of the magical ocean of music I dearly believe in"
Mike Watt

BELFI/SCHICK DUO

Ignaz Schick:turntables, electronics, percussion
A.B.:drums, percussion, electronics

Andrea Belfi and Ignaz Schick have met in Berlin & Bruxelles and after longer talks found that a collaboration could be interesting. They were commissioned by the Berlin venue "Remise" to do a show & they were rehearsing and recording for only an afternoon before their concert. The meeting was sort of a blind date as they have never worked together before & it turned out to be that magic that they decided to intensify and continue their duo collaboration.

Belfi is using his minimal set up of snare drum, cymbal & electronics while Schick is limiting his rotating surfaces mainly to bows & gongs and some sparse use of a loop delay. The music is a nice blend of different things ranging from Belfi's postrock and electronica to Schick's electro-acoustic improv and drone.

Ignaz Schick website

STILLIVINGROOMS

Andrea Belfi: concept & sounds
Mirco Santi: films

Any room is a living room. Every room is quiet, open to be inhabitated. Every room silently awaits its inhabitants to live in it thus transforming it.

Stillivingrooms consists of an audio/visual live-set, which takes place inside an apartment’s room (or more than one room), using its physical (forniture, windowpanes, walls) and conceptual elements (intimacy, familiarity, sense of protection). The narrative sequence is divided into three parts, but it doesn’t care about following a linear time progression.
Stillivingrooms confronts the very notion of feedback: sounds are diffused by the same devices which produce them in what we might call a ‘dirty’ circle; similarly, images of interiors are projected on an actual room surfaces, unperfectly redoubling them. This process creates a trompe l’oeil/trompe la conscience which gently pushes the audience to perceive anew the domestic/private space.
Stillivingrooms plays with different elements: the Intimacy (of the apartment where the project takes place, of Home Movies images taken from private family archives), the repetition of sound elements, the free association of forms, emotions and sounds inspired by the interaction between audio and video.
It has been presented in collaboration with Andrea Lissoni and XING) at Netmage Festival (Bologna, January 2008 excerpt, Fondazione Claudio Buziol (Venice, May 2008), ARTFALL (Ferrara, October 2008 excrept

CHRISTA PFANGEN

Andrea Belfi (drums, percussions, synthesizers, electronics)
Mattia Coletti (acoustic and electric guitar, electronics, voice)

Electroacoustic modules covered by a dust of blues. Improvised beats suddenly splitting into streams of arrhythmia, and viceversa.Pulses of drums along with guitars sketch rhythms which are as hypnotic as they are surprising.Sounds can take many a shape, resulting sometimes obsessive and sometimes delicately lyric.


see also myspace

various projects and collaborations

BELFI/MACHINEFABRIEK DUO
Rutger Zuydervelt: guitar & electronics
AB:drums, pesussion, electronics

www.machinefabriek.nu
www.myspace.com/machinefabriek

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ROSOLINA MAR

Enrico Zambon:guitar
A.B.:drums
Bruno Vanessi:guitar

The Rosolina Mar project began in 2000, with the meeting of MARCO DE TOGNI(guitar), BRUNO VANESSI(guitar), ENRICO ZAMBON(guitar), and ANDREA BELFI(drums). All of these musicians had previously played in punk/hc/noise bands. During the first months their music was characterized by long improvised sections, based on post-rock, classic rock, and avant rock, inspired by Loren Mazzacane Connors, S.Augustin and them other avant-rock music passions. A few months later the band was forced to continue as a trio without De Togni, searching for a personal identity that create a connection between the sixties and modern rock'n'roll.
"Rosolina Mar" is a sea side place in the north-east of Italy, where from autumn to spring everything appears as an element of a Federico Fellini's movie.
In the last 3 years RM played as a support to DAVID GRUBBS TRIO, LORD BISHOP & HIS ROCKADELIC KINGS, BELLINI, DEAD BROTHERS, RED HOUSE BLUES, G.I. JOE, RED WORMS FARM,FRANCOIS CAMBUZAT & LES ENFANT ROUGE, 90DAYMEN,ONE DIMENSIONAL MAN, ENON, LIARS.


see also: http://www.myspace.com/rosolinamar
on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCjQUel49ac

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LARKIN GRIMM & ROSOLINA MAR
Larkin Grimm:guitar & voice
AB:drums
Bruno Vanessi:muffled bass
Enrico Zambon:guitar

http://www.myspace.com/larkingrimm

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CATHERINE

An edited film using found footage: a series of anonymous family films tracing the life of Catherine, starting with her birth in 1949 in an affluent French family up to the 1970s, where the film ends on an uncertain note. The film shows a mysterious trajectory through a bygone era, lost spaces, and ambiguous family ties. The images also give an overview of the history of the different formats in use in amateur cinema: 16mm, 8mm, Super 8.

The original films were restored by Mirco Santi and Paolo Simoni, founders of the Italian association Home Movies (Bologna), that works since 2001 for the safeguarding and conservation of family films.

Stefano Pilia: guitar & electronics
Xavier Garcia Bardon: turntables, electronics
A.B.: drums, persussion, electronics

http://www.homemovies.it/

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CIRCO TOGNI HOME MOVIES

A series of 8mm films shot by the Togni family, the famous dynasty of circus artists, between the 1940s and the 1970s, were found inside a circus wagon in horrible shape. After being restored in collaboration with La Camera Ottica, Home Movies revives them on multiple screens projection accompanied by different electroacoustic musicians.

Stefano Pilia: guitar & electronics
Xavier Garcia Bardon: turntables, electronics
A.B.: drums & electronics
Valerio Tricoli: tape loops & electronics
Benjamin Franklin: electronics & keyboards

http://www.homemovies.it/

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FONDO FELISI
A.B.: drums, percussion, electronics
Mirco Santi: film selection and edit
Paolo Simoni, Claudio Giapponesi: supervision

Il Progetto audiovisuale, prevede l'interazione tra la musica di Belfi con il suo liveset elettroacustico, e le immagini selezionate da Mirco Santi provenientidell'Archivio di Home Movies, Bologna.
Le immagini provengono dai film di famiglia del fondo Felisi, sono in formato Pathé Baby, e ritraggono la città di Verona tra la metà degli anni 20' ed i primi anni 30'.
All'occhio dello spettatore appaiono due piani storici e visivi progressivi e complementari: quello dei monumenti, dei ponti, delle piazze e degli edifici storici del centro cittadino veronese, riconoscibili ed apparentemente immutabili nei secoli, e quello della storia della pellicola stessa, quasi novantenne, con i suoi protagonisti interni alla famiglia, adulti e bambini, amici e conoscenti.
Ma è la gente comune, le persone, involontatiamente inquadrate, sono i cittadini, i passanti di quella città dei primi decenni del Novecento, i veri protagonisti di queste immagini. Fissano stupefatti la macchina da presa, o passano come fantasmi scuri sullo sfondo di pietre secolari, in una dimensione assolutamente onirica
La musica di Belfi si sviluppa attraverso tessiture sonore e pulsazioni ritmiche, paesaggi definiti dal suono acustico della batteria e delle percussioni, e dal suono elettronico dei sintetizzatori e dei dispositivi elettroacustici.
L'improvvisazione si prende il suo spazio all'interno della struttura musicale suggerita dalla successione delle immagini.
La diffusione del suono si basa su un sistema di amplificazione autocostruito, in cui la batteria diventa produttore di suono e al contempo cassa di risonanza dei suoni stessi.

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SQUARCICATRICI
Jacopo Andreini: sax, gutar
Andrea Caprara: sax
Matteo bennici: bass
A.B.:drums

http://virb.com/squarcicatrici

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BELFI/FRANKLIN DUO
AB:drums & electronics
Benjamin Frankart: casio keyboards & electronics

http://www.myspace.com/bfkn

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ZIMMERFREI "Casa di Fantasmi"
Concept: ZimmerFrei
Sound & direction: Massimo Carozzi
Video: Anna de Manincor
Light: Luca Piga
with:Anna Rispoli,Stefano Questorio,Andrea Belfi (drums),Vittoria Burattini(drums)
Voices: Manuele Giannini, Francesca Amati

http://www.zimmerfrei.co.it/

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past:::::::::::::::::

MEDVES
AB: drums
Giuseppe Ielasi: guitar
Stefano Pilia: guitar, double bass
Riccardo Wanke: guitar
Renato Rinaldi: tape loops & objects

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RHYS CHATHAM "guitar trio is my life"
Rhys Chatham: guitar
Manuel Giannini: guitar
Bruno Vanessi: guitar
Mattia Coletti: guitar
Xabier Iriondo: guitar
Andrea Faccioli: guitar
Stefano Pilia: bass
A.B.: drums

http://www.myspace.com/rhyschatham

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DEN&BREADFAST
AB: drums & percussions
Andrea Faccoli: acoustic & electric guitar

Den & Bread Fast duo loves:
fast & relax, substance, acoustic sounds & sometimes electric sounds, blues feelings, Storm & Stress, improvvisation, J.Coltrane's Spazio Interstellare & A.Coltrane's Coscienza Universale, fluctuating arpeggios, the thin (red) line between rhythm & arrhythmy , the voice & the onomatopea as score

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Lecrevisse (2001-2004)
Andrea Faccioli: guitar
Matteo Gasparato: bass
Emiliano Merlin: guitar, voice
Stefano Roveda: violin, keyboards
A.B.: drums

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Bramagnoseologica (1997-1999)
Federico Faccioli: voice
A.B.:guitar
Davide Marchiori: guitar
Francesco della Puppa: bass
Simone Marchioretti: drums

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Superplatani (1997-1999)
Bruno Ambrosi: bass & voice
A.B.: drums
Enrico Zambon: guitar
Nicolò Pasetto: guitar
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Chipmunks (1996-1998)

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Gilda (1994-1997)
A.B.: drums
Gianluca Ribuoli: voice
Mattia Dongili: bass
Nicolò Pasetto: guitar
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