My new release on Sucu Music netlabel

I'm twice proud to announce that my new release, Music For Toys Meditation is out now in free download at Sucu Music netlabel.

Proud once, cos' "a new 'something' for a musician is like having a new birth for a family". And it's just the way I feel.
Proud twice, cos' it has been released by the netlabel project I started some months ago with some friends.
Cover art, pencil drawing by Paolo Fastuca.
Almost all the tracks contain my first steps in a new kind of approach in playing live only with a guitar and an iPad.
Visit the release page, download it and feedback me somehow if you like.

Sucu Music my idea for a netlabel

Sucu Music netlabel
the ambient electronic experimental place for free music

All the Sucu Music releases are in free download and published under the Creative Commons license 3.0

click here to start your free music experience




I always looked at the netlabels world with much interest cos' I believe that music distribution has deeply changed in these years and the old building of the traditional discography system is crumbling down, no matter what they can do sheltering to new distribution services as online streaming or online pay-per-downloads.
I had beautiful experiences with the netlabels I dealed with (Negative Sounde Institute above all).
Since the "web for all" as a new form of communication appeared to the world scene I've experienced how certain kind of music and artistic expressions could have never been distributed via the "traditional" music channels. They don't "produce" money and so they are of no interest to the commercial discography, but they DO HAVE an audience, larger than one can expect.
That's why I personally think that netlabels start where discography ends. And that's the reason why netlabels MUST distribute online music for free, protecting the artists at the same time.
The hard matter that a pro musician however has to be paid somehow, but a non-pro musician can produce valid music and be named artist as well as the pro, is a subject too complex and too long to discuss here, so let's discard it.

Sucu Music is my idea for a netlabel, created with the help of some friends on September 2013.

Sucu Music mainly was born driven by two needs:
1. I was tired of publishing on music sites things that was hard to make listen to people, despite of the social sharing efforts (no fear to admit it).
2. I thought that creating a netlabel only for my music woud have been quite stupid, so... let's do something not only for me but for the "bleeding art and artists" (Pink Floyd, The Wall), favoring local projects first, and all the creative musicians dealing with ambient electronic and experimental music with all their "manifestation and hybridization" (Tony Colina).

Who's helping me in this project?
Luca Sproviero, creative drummer, musician and producer, fond in good music, reading and single malt.
Tony Colina, talented pianist, multi-instrumentalist, writer, painter and... beer
Vincenzo Scuderi, smart web designer, music photography and comics lover, biker

Here is our manifesto, written by Tony, taken from the "About" section of the netlabel site.

Sucu Music is a netlabel based in Enna, Sicily, Italy. It started its operations in September 2013 and its aim is to produce and promote stimulating music entities, both local and otherwise.
The musical genres it deals with are ambient, experimental music, electronic music, improvisation in all their possible incarnations, manifestations and hybridizations.
Sucu Music wants to be a space wherein all the relational dynamics between and among these genres can develop and interact, bouncing from a field to the other as in a hall of mirrors, or a network of cross-references, led only by the musicians’ creativity and artistic feeling. A space wherein the freedom of musical action is not smothered by any restrictive logics of a commercial nature.
All the Sucu Music releases are meant for free downloading and published under Creative Commons License 3.0

Into the Fukushima Drones compilation by Aural Films netlabel

- english -

Aural Films, an active netlabel dealing expecially with drones music, launched an interesting project and I was happy to contribute.
I took the chance to continue my current experiments making music with an iPad. I made this drone without using a guitar, preferring treating samples and sounds.
I was inspired by a time-lapse video on YouTube of a car trip along the places near Fukushima after the flood and the nuclear accident. Sorry I can't remember the name of the video or the link.
I was deeply impressed and moved by looking at the abandoned streets and buildings, you could almost smell and feel all the suffering.
So, my piece is just like moving through this places with a geiger counter sounding almost like a running train and evolving into something overwelming the senses toward the end (as it reached a "ground zero" of the disaster). It ends with a long trail of "bad memories" letting the constant "geiger train" alone.

The words of its founder about the project:
"Fukushima Drones is a compilation of drone tracks contributed by artists from around the world. This community project is dedicated to raising awareness and funds to support efforts coping with the Fukushima Diaichi nuclear disaster."
It's a live project and everyone is free to contribute adding his music, according to the Aural Films music mission.

Click on the cover image below to listen or, better, download the compilation donating something for the cause





And this is my track

Into the 12-12-12 project compilation

- english -

Just like I did for the Looper's Delight 11-11-11 project, I was happy to collaborate to the next compilation project, Looper's Delight 12-12-12 project, wanted and coordinated by Georgina Brett one year later.

She collected many artists' contribution who gave their livelooping vision to the last palindromic date. The concept was the same: compose/improvise something containing the digit twelve.

My music contribution title, Last time in my life, sounds a bit "dramatic" but so it was. The last time in my life to live in a perfect palindromic day, even though I'm aware that time is only a "human categorization". I have to admit that I had problems coming out with fair producing and mixing result. During the following months I definitely realized that the piece itself wasn't good at all. I'm sorry to write this but I ended totally denying this piece. It's really bad, I don't like it, maybe I never did.

Anyway, click on the image below to listen/download the compilation, so many good music inside, have a nice listening.

And this is my contribution

La colonna sonora per "Il risveglio"

The Awakening. My soundtrack for "Il risveglio" a tale by Tony Colina.

Me: ambient guitars, samples, grooves, treatments
Tony Colina: narrator, catatonic guitar, distorted piano.

"Il risveglio" è un racconto che fa parte della raccolta "Ultime notizie: fine del mondo" un libro edito da Navarra Editore.

Presentato di recente ad Enna, l'autore mi ha piacevolmente coinvolto nella sonorizzazione del reading.
Questa è la versione studio di ciò che più o meno è accaduto in quella sera di febbraio del 2013.

"FedraRANDOM Set" download

- english/italiano -

The FedraRANDOM Set digital CD is out in free download

Click CD image to download / clicca la copertina per scaricare l'album gratis

Info su FedraRANDOM

Pseudoambient - Venus Transit

- english -

Sometime ago I made a little mobile electronic music composition for the past Venus Transit. An astronomical event that occurs twice a century... once in my (our) lifetime.

Images are courtesy of NASA. Audio is made with the Animoog app. This song is part of a little set I made of audio tracks composed and developed only with mobile phone apps. A kind of audio producing exercise.

Pseudoambient per il Teatro

- italiano -

Da qualche settimana ho iniziato una piacevole e proficua collaborazione con l'associazione teatrale Compagnia dell'Arpa, che da sempre propone pezzi teatrali di notevole spessore grazie all'approccio creativo, competente e appassionato dei suoi componenti.
Mi è stato proposto di musicare dal vivo uno dei loro ultimi lavori. FedraRandom. Clicca qui per i dettagli.
Il mio intervento consiste nel creare una colonna sonora, non tanto di sottofondo, quanto di supporto al testo. Interventi sonori a volte descrittivi, a volte enfatizzanti, a volte di accentuazioni e sottolineature.
Ne è venuto fuori un set musicale tra l'ambient e il noise che, a mio personale parere, si è incastonato egregiamente con l'ottimo lavoro teatrale, caratterizzandolo con dei colori sonori che richiamano sia al mito che all'introspezione. Sono molto soddisfatto di questa collaborazione.
Il 15 settembre abbiamo fatto la prima al "Villaggio Bizantino", una location archeologica incantevole nei pressi di Calascibetta. Sia io che gli altri siamo stati molto ispirati dal contesto e dalle particolari condizioni atmosferiche in cui si è svolto lo spettacolo. Gli spettatori hanno potuto partecipare in un'atmosfera sospesa quasi irreale.

Sopra il "Villaggio Bizantino" al tramonto, Calascibetta

Di seguito vi propongo il set completo della colonna sonora suonata dal vivo per FedraRandom il 15 settembre. Per chi è interessato, a breve pubblicherò la release scaricabile

Looper's Delight 11-11-11 Project

- english -

I've been always attracted by "concept compilations". So it has been a pleasure for me to be part of a compilation made by loopers celebrating and remembering the past date 11-11-11.

The initial proposal by Rick Walker posted in the Looper's Delight forum was:

Everyone on this list who feels like it, sets up their live looping rig somewhere and on Friday, November 11th at either 11:11 a.m. or 11:11 p.m.
they commence to play and record a live looping piece of music that last exactly 11 minutes long. Put an alarm clock up in front of you while you play.
This will be an 11 minute piece of music on 11/11/11 at 11/11 a.m. or 11/11 p.m., wherever one lives.

Sincerely I don't know if an event like this took place or not, but recently, Michael Peters collected the contributions of some artists of the Looper's delight community. Eachone recorded a track about 11 minutes long. The result is an interesting collection of sounds and visions around the livelooping world.

You can listen to it now, clicking the play button here

Or you can download this compilation for free clicking on the following record image

Remembering Y2KX International Livelooping Festival (Part 2)

- english -

This is the "Remembering Y2KX International Livelooping Festival (Part 2)" post.
Just as explained in Part 1, I'm here to remember my experience.

One year ago today (october 15) I performed in the main festival together with Jeff Duke.
We had two slots where we could perform both as solo and together featuring our 6000 miles wide ambient guitar duo known as USIT.

These are the video footage of that special night

Pseudo live @ Y2KX, Pearl Alley Studio, CA

Pseudo and USIT live @ Y2KX, Pearl Alley Studio, CA

USIT and Jeff Duke live @ Y2KX, Pearl Alley Studio, CA

Remembering Y2KX International Livelooping Festival (Part 1)

- english -

These days (october 12-17, 2011) are the days of the annual Y2KX+1 International Livelooping Festival. Many artists from many countries in the world join together to share music and visions about a unique and extremely creative way to make music with loop devices of any kind, all down in Santa Cruz and San Jose, kindly hosted by Rick and Bill Walker and all their friends.

A wonderful community in which, I understood, that "livelooping" is almost a "way of life".

Last year I was a performer, and it was one of the most beautiful experience in my life. This year... I'm at home... Hope to make it in a future edition somehow.

Anyway here is my contribution to remember those days.

One year ago today (october 13, 2010) I played at Anno Domini Gallery in San Jose. Here is my set of that night in three parts, enjoy:

Pseudo @ Anno Domini Gallery, San Jose, CA (Part 1)

Pseudo @ Anno Domini Gallery, San Jose, CA (Part 2)

Pseudo @ Anno Domini Gallery, San Jose, CA (Part 3)

2010, Dashdot, an ImprovRelease

- english -

download @ Bandcamp

This is my last release (May 2010), available on Bandcamp. It contains tracks taken from my posts on the ImprovFriday website.

All tracks are improvised and played live looping with my EDP+ and effects.

ImprovFriday is a community of musicians and sound makers joining from each part of the world, from Thursday to Saturday of every week of the year.

The moderators (usually, J.C. Combs, Steve Layton...) set a thread and the members, under the flag "improvising or bust", post their audio tracks to share. Every week, hours of music and sounds that goes from ambient to minimal, from noise to field recordings, are posted free to listen and download, commented by this active community. It is a good creative pool where one can share ideas, projects, techniques, new collaborations come to life. There are blogs, forums, social media, weekly events such as livestreaming gigs.

A perfect place for an artist who has no creative boundaries.

USIT = Gaetano Fontanazza & Jeff Duke

- english -

About two years ago on Facebook I had the honor to meet Jeff Duke and his music. He is a really creative and talented ambient guitarist based in Ocala, Florida. Soon we had mutual repect for our music and we found a very similar creative approach. One day he told me that there was an online system called Ninjam. This protocol is used by many artists in the world, and let two or more online musicians play together in a virtual jam session. Morover, using a specific DAW software called Reaper, musicians can record their sessions into separate tracks for further editing and mixing. We cought this as a perfect chance to play together and see if our worlds, 6000 miles apart, could have been joined. Since 2009 we had several sessions, in which we found a common feeling in improvising ambient electronic music. It was a weird situation, we felt a kind of brotherhood even if we didn't meet in person. Later we had the opportunity to meet in real life at the Y2KX International Livelooping Festival. In that week, October 2010, we shared not only our music, but even the same hotel room, the same car (we used to call it the "USIT mobile"), we spent a wonderful week of music and brotherhood, together with the other loopers as well.
This is the birth of USIT, our 6000 miles wide ambient guitar duo. We made also online streaming concerts, using separate webcams, images, hosted in websites. We played really together :-) our liveset at the Y2KX. We released on Bandcamp 3 albums. We will continue meeting online hoping for a next real reunion, who knows...
Click on the covers below to listen and download our music

Check out this video excerpt of our set at the Y2KX.

The "Gnostic Guitar" volumes

- english -

Gnostic Guitar Vol 1
(follow your instinct)

Moving my first steps into “live looping” in 2006, I realized that improvisation could be an interesting approach to follow. Mostly is near to my creative criteria. This is the basis of the Gnostic Guitar concept.

In the blog area of my profile in Myspace there are few lines explaining what I intellectually wanted to mean with "Gnostic Guitar" or whatever... Click here to read it, and good luck!

How I did it? Simply recording my improvisations with guitar, loop and effects into a single stereo track and choosing the more interesting takes later. The only editing I made was only cutting some redundant sections.

Then, it was natural collecting the tracks into an album named Gnostic Guitar Vol 1 (yes, Vol 1! I wouldn't stop with this one).

In these years something deeply changed in distribuiting music, both in indie and major contexts.

Since then, I “produced” my releases as much nice and less expensive as possible (just like any other unsigned artist) and distributed to friends or occasional fans in livesets and gigs or sent them to magazines for a review.

But now... now there's the world wide web! Not that this implies that anyone can be a superstar but I think there are more chances to reach the right audience.

And so, for me, it was. I met online Robert Nunnally and Verian Thomas who managed the netlabel Negative Sound Institute (NSI). They released Gnostic Guitar Vol 1 on March 2007.

In about three years GG Vol 1 gets more than 2500 downloads and it is reviewed in specific ambient websites. I'm glad about this. I can say that my new “ambient season” started from here.

Here are the links to download your free copy of Gnostic Guitar Vol 1

download @ Negative Sound Institute netlabel

download @ Bandcamp

download @ Jamendo

Gnostic Guitar Vol 2
(layer your instinct)

About an year later GG Vol 1 was released, I started composing Gnostic Guitar Vol 2.

I wanted to take the concept of “extemporary composition” to a next level, composing songs in which the improvisation was layered. So, the recording of the first track in each multitrack recording became a kind of leading thread for the further takes.

GG Vol 2 appear to be a collection of short songs, an exhibition of faceted sonic paintings. You can identify recursing themes and schemes. This is certainly due to a not well defined rationalizing process... The album opening has lyrics too.

Just like any other music experience I had this one artistically enriched me.

NSI released Gnostic Guitar Vol 2 on october 2008.

The sharing policy of this netlabel brought my music to some video artists attention. Sam Renseiw in particular created several videos with soundtracks taken from both releases. Here it is my blogpost with all these clips collected.

Here are the links to download your free copy of Gnostic Guitar Vol 2

download @ Negative Sound Institute netlabel

download @ Bandcamp

download @ Jamendo

Ambient guitar 2.0 personal upgrade

- english -

There's a statement I usually put in my social media profiles, and it is this: “For me as for many others, everything started with Brian Eno. I never played guitar the same ever since”.

For me it started about in 1985... but I won't bore you... Let's jump to more recent times.

While already committed in making experimental and electronic music with the project NenTE since 2000, about six years later I was encouraged by the chance to promote ones music world wide in the Internet. So I resumed some music ideas set aside and decided to play ambient music as a solo again (the NenTE activity still continues its life). I wanted to renew my gears. I bought some rack mounted effects, I discovered the Looper's Delight website community and I felt that “live looping” would be one of my “ways”. I bought an Echoplex Digital Pro+ from an Ebayer from Tucson (it was impossible to find this loop machine in Italy) and started playing exploring the sonic chances offered by my brand renewed rig.

I wouldn't have bet a buck if someone told me I would have met many of the talented artists active in LD few years later at the Y2KX International Livelooping Festival in Santa Cruz, CA.

This is a picture from my profile on Myspace, the caption says "Ambient construction devices"

Ok, let's see in the next posts what I've done with this, during the following years...

Who am I?

- english -

I'm a musician.

No, I'm not a pro. Maybe years ago I haven't had the required will and determination to make music my job for living. Yet, it would have been the natural path of my life. A graphic designer in a publishing house, that's what I ended to do for living. And... yes I live in Italy, south, deep south of Italy, at the center of an island between sun and sea that someone calls Sicily.

I'm not even much young anymore, but passion in making music never left me and never ended.

I played almost every kind of music, except for Jazz and Classical, I have not the required technical basis for that.

One of my main interests is making ambient music. I'm a guitarist who likes "having fun" with loopers and effects. But I can produce sound almost with everything, if necessary... (LOL!)

There's nothing intellectual in my music. My approach is mostly made up of instinct and emotion. I rather prefer intellectualizing after the creative process, if necessary. It's just a way to know myself better.

I act like an explorer who has surprise for everything but he knows when something great is found.

I've been criticized an appreciated. I had my “15 minutes fame” sometime.

I don't like to list what I've done.

I rather prefer to post my past, present and future with sounds, links, players, toughts, verses and bla bla bla

Ah, and... sorry for my English. In this and in any other future English post. Cheers

(This is the English version of my very first post in this blog made in may 2010)

Al Y2KX International Live Looping Festival

- italiano -

California 13-19 ottobre 2010

Avrei dovuto pubblicare questo post un bel po' di tempo fa ma... diciamo che mi sono perso un attimo... un bell'attimo!

Non sto qui a dilungarmi sull'esperienza che in sé ritengo finora la più importante della mia vita musicale. Posso solo dire di aver vissuto un'eccezionale settimana circondato da persone e artisti straordinari sullo scenario di una California che da sempre ho avuto nel cuore immaginandola, e che adesso vi rimane ricordandola.

Ringrazio, sopra tutti, Rick Walker che mi ha dato l'opportunità di esibirmi in due palcoscenici e farmi così ascoltare da artisti provenienti veramente da tutto il mondo e che sono le luci di riferimento del live looping mondiale, sia per quello che riguarda il lato artistico sia per quello che riguarda il lato costruttivo/inventivo/ideologico. Ad esempio ho conosciuto Matthias Grob, il padre dell'Echoplex Digital Pro Plus, la loop machine che attualmente uso.

Un ringraziamento speciale va a Jeff Duke fratello in musica nella rete e adesso anche nella realtà. È stato emozionante e strano suonare assieme in carne e ossa per la prima volta, ma così come abbiamo condiviso il nostro soggiorno da fratelli cosi abbiamo suonato come se ci fossimo conosciuti da sempre.

Ringrazio anche tutti gli altri loopers che ho avuto l'onore di conoscere e che grazie al web continuo a frequentare, condividendo esperienze musicali, idee, opinioni, progetti in una solida community in cui aleggia la ferma convinzione che "looping is a way of living".

Spero di ritornare qualche altro anno all'International Live Looping Festival.

Ecco i video dei miei sets al Y2KX International Live Looping Festival.

13 ottobre 2010

Gaetano Fontanazza - Live in San Jose, CA

Anno Domini Gallery

15 ottobre 2010

Gaetano Fontanazza - Live in Santa Cruz, CA (insieme a Jeff Duke)

Pearl Alley Studios

Altri video sono disponibili su Youtube, basta cercare "Y2KX"

Vi raccomando il canale Youtube video del festival

Livelooping

Y2KX International Live Looping Festival, ci sono anch'io!

- italiano -

Live Looping cos'è?

Per dirla in breve, è una tecnica di esecuzione musicale che sfrutta dei cicli (loop) sonori definiti e modificati in tempo reale dal musicista tramite un dispositivo elettronico che confidenzialmente viene definito "looper".

Live looping non è, quindi, un genere musicale, ma piuttosto un modo di suonare. Non è legato a uno strumento in particolare, ma alla tecnica e ai dispositivi usati per generare e gestire i loops. In genere il termine "loopers" indica sia il musicista sia le macchine dedicate, i computer e perfino degli smartphones che vengono usati. Negli anni, si è sviluppato un vero e proprio movimento attraverso siti, forum, social networks, rassegne e festivals, coinvolgendo loopers di tutto il mondo e nel quale mi trovo "coinvolto" anch'io da circa 4 anni.

Rick Walker, estroso musicista e appassionato looper californiano, è l'ideatore e l'organizzatore dell'International Live Looping Festival, il più grande festival di live looping del mondo, l'evento di riferimento per ogni looper.

In un'intensa settimana di musica si daranno appuntamento a Santa Cruz in California, più di 70 artisti provenienti da tutto il mondo. Il festival si svolge a più livelli in diverse locations tra Santa Cruz e le vicine San Jose e San Francisco. L'evento, anno dopo anno, prende il nome dell'anno in cui si svolge (Y2KX = 2010).

Ho avuto l'onore di essere invitato da Rick a partecipare (mi sembrava quasi che scherzasse) e, nonostante le difficoltà logistiche di attraversare mezzo mondo, ho detto "quasi subito" di sì, considerando questa una grande opportunità che mi veniva offerta. Rick ha rilanciato, programmando una mia esibizione extra alla serata celebrativa del 15mo Anniversario del primo Live Looping Festival. Non posso essere altro che riconoscente per questo.

Non sarò solo io, che di certo sono l'ultimo arrivato, a "rappresentare" l'Italia in questa grande rassegna. Sui palchi del Y2KX Loopfestival ci saranno anche l'ottimo pianista Fabio Anile (siciliano come me), Massimo Liverani con un'innovativa soluzione strumentale gestita tramite iPhone, e il chitarrista Roberto Zorzi.

Ma non è tutto, perché al festival mi esibirò anche insieme a Jeff Duke per il nostro progetto USIT che da virtuale diventerà reale.

Le mie esibizioni:

13 ottobre, ore 23.00-23.30 (ore 8.00 ora italiana)

"15th Anniversary of the 1st Digital Live Looping Series"

Y2K-X LIVE LOOPING FESTIVAL

San Jose, Anno Domini Gallery

15 ottobre, ore 19.30-20.30 (ore 4,30 ora italiana)

MAIN FESTIVAL (solo e jam con Jeff Duke)

Santa Cruz, Pearl Alley Studios

L'evento sarà interamente filmato e le esibizioni saranno rese disponibili per la visione in streaming (non conosco ancora il link)

Questo il sito ufficiale del festival

http://www.y2kloopfest.com/

Piccola nota sui Loop

Il "padre fondatore" dei loops universalmente riconosciuto è Robert Fripp, quando negli anni '70 usava due registratori Revox che, uniti alla sua geniale manipolazione sonora e alla sua inimitabile e originale tecnica strumentale, costituivano i famosi Frippertronics.

Pseudo e Videoart

- italiano -

I due volumi di Gnostic Guitar usciti con Negative Sound Institute, il loro "successo" di downloads e i riscontri positivi di tante persone e contatti avuti in rete sono stati un ottima spinta per continuare a fare musica ambient "guitar oriented" e distribuirla in rete.

Robert e Verian alla NSI sono degli attivi sostenitori della "filosofia di diffusione" offerta della licenza Creative Commons con la quale sono state pubblicate queste mie due releases. Ciò ha permesso ad alcuni videomakers, di usare la musica nei propri video, allargando così il cerchio.

In particolare il danese Sam Renseiw ha usato svariati pezzi "gnostic" nei suoi "experimental woodles" per il progetto Spacetwo:Patalab disponibili oltre che su Youtube anche su blip.tv.

Ecco i video di Sam Renseiw

Orbital day (da Gnostic Guitar Vol I)

Still Life in motion (da Gnostic Guitar Vol II)

Sparkles of darkness (da Gnostic Guitar Vol II)

Stream of consciousless (da Gnostic Guitar Vol II)

Loud silence (da Gnostic Guitar Vol II)

Sunrise on the reeds (da Gnostic Guitar Vol I)

Hall in halflight (da Gnostic Guitar Vol I)