Andrea Belfi

(born 1979). He has been playing drums since the age of 14. He studied art in Milan and has been working in the experimental music field since 2000.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.Andrea Belfi’s new album, Between Neck & Stomach -which has been released in September 2006 by Hapna records- is grounded on two core elements: the first is the material collected during the unique experiment of turning a house into “a living creature with its own voice” (just one example: a synth emitting one continuous note shaking a cupboard filled with pots, pans and plates). The second core element is the choice of just one thematic note per song, around which each track is built and balanced. This new album, Between Neck & Stomach, sketches imaginary landscapes where drums, guitars and voices blend into a bunch of eclectic tracks, in spite of their radical minimalist roots, are definitively worthy of the name ‘songs’.Andrea Belfi’s skills in composing and editing is electroacoustic works were clearly perceivable in his 2002 debut album, Ned n°2, warmly welcomed and well reviewed by The Wire, Bananafish, Sound Projector and other music magazines.From 2005 he started a new project called Christa Pfangen, named after (but consciously misspelled) Andy Warhol's muse Nico. Christa Pfangen is a duo featuring Andrea and the guitar player Mattia Coletti. The two recorded the CD “Watch me getting back the end”, released in January 2007 by Die Schachtel, which entered in the list of the ten most listened records published by The Wire 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 and Valerio Tricoli, is to play over these silent movies, in an attempt to join yet enrich (in a very post-modern way) the tradition of the live orchestras which used to perform in the cinemas during the silent movies era. Between 2006 and 2008, Belfi conceived the project Stillivingrooms which later on developed a visual side under the supervision of Mirco Santi. Stillivingrooms is a performance/sound installation, where conceptual (familiarity, sense of belonging and protection)and actual elements (walls ans windowpanes, forniture and doors) belonging to the domestic space are re-discussed and re-shaped in odd, half-reassuring half-enstranging ways. It has been presented at Netmage Festival in Bologna (January 2008), and at the Claudio Buziol Foundation kick-off party in Venice (May 2008),His last solo record called “Knots”, recorded & produced by Giuseppe Ielasi, it has been released by Die Schachtel records in January 2008. He performed it as a live set in Turin (Artissima 2007), Chicago (Lampo), Aalst (Netwerk), Bruxelles (Klarafestival), Stockholm (Ugglan Festival), Oslo among others. Andrea Belfi’s “impossible withouts” are: early American minimalists (such as Terry Riley), Gastr del Sol, C-Shulz & Hajsch, Steve Roden, early Jamaican Dub (King Tubby), Starfuckers. He played and collaborated with Stefano Pilia, Giuseppe Ielasi, Valerio Tricoli, Damo Suzuki, Dean Roberts, MTK collective, Claudio Rocchetti, Alessandro Bosetti,Rhys Chatham, Xabier Iriondo, Mattia Coletti, Renato Rinaldi, Larkin Grimm, Benjamin Franklin, Machinefabriek, Tony Conrad, David Grubbs_________ Selected Discography: -Andrea Belfi, "Knots", CD (Die Schachtel 2008) -Christa Pfangen, “Watch me getting back the end”, CD (Die-Schachtel 2007) -Andrea Belfi, “Between Neck & Stomach”, CD (Hapna 2006) -Den&BreadFast, “acoustic&semiacoustic”, CD-R (Sachimay Interventions 2006) -Rosolina Mar, ”Before & After Dinner”, CD/LP (Wallace 2006) -Andrea Belfi/Stefano Pilia, Aa/Vv “Invisibile Pyramid:Elegy Box” 6CD-BOX (Last Visibile Dog 2005) -Medves, “lives in Medves”, LP (Fringes recordings 2004) -Rosolina Mar, “S/T”, CD (Wallace 2003) -Andrea Belfi, “Ned n°2”, CD-R (Chocolateguns 2001)