Robby Aceto profile picture

Robby Aceto

About Me

"... Robby Aceto creates that rarest of birds; atmospheric music with an edge..." - Guitar Player Magazine.Robby Aceto is an internationally recognized musician whose highly personalized approach and unending fascination with the electric guitar place him firmly among the new breed of "color" guitarists. He has toured and recorded with such artists as The Heads, Tom Tom Club, David Sylvian, Jansen/Barbieri/Karn, David Torn/Splattercell, Italian ambient pop diva Alice (Carla Bissi), Irish punk/blues firebrand Noella Hutton, jazz singer Lizz Wright, and Cape Breton singer/songwriter Douglas September.His debut solo cd "Code"(1996, Alchemy Records; produced by David Torn) was released to unanimous critical praise at home and abroad. Highlighting Robby in his post-band songwriter mode, "Code" is full of textural, dynamic guitar work evocative of Axis-era Jimi Hendrix, dreamily intense vocals, and thoughtful, dark atmospheric arrangements. He can be found as guitarist, co-producer and/or mixer, and sometimes singer with such diverse artists as Douglas September (Io, Oil Tan Bow), The Billy Nayer Show (Goodbye Straplight Serentino), Jansen/Barbieri/Karn (Beginning to Melt), Patti Witten, The Horseflies, and many others.In 2001 he collaborated with composer/drummer Bobby Lurie on their evocative score for Emily Hart's cautionary environmental film "The God Squad". His re-conceptualizing/remix of that score for cd release resulted in "Music from the film The God Squad" (2003;Outer Orbit Records). This outing provided him the catalyst to move his guitar work further out of the confines of the traditional band/group setting, and since then, he has focused his efforts primarily on composing for film. His film scores are a beautiful combination of roots grind, elegant textural guitar work, electronica, traditional and ethnic instruments, chamber groups, and orchestral settings. Among his film credits are: "Saved By Deportation" (dir: Slavomir Grunberg; winner Audience Award, Best Documentary; Jewish International Film Festival, Washington, DC), "Walking the Line", "The Closure Myth", "Jolly Black Slaves", "Invisible Ink"... many more.He composed the theme music for NPR's "World@Work", has scored several short films for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and his music underscores the environmental multi-media walls linking the Lunder Conservation Center with the rest of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC.Most recently, Robby contributed guitar and atmospheres to "Sundays with Radio", the much anticipated cd release by Canadian artist Douglas September; and has just completed scoring the documentary "Portraits of Emotion" by award-winning film maker Slawomir Grunberg. Robby is also at work on a solo cd project, is a regular participant in improvisation to silent film at the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, and is in odd moments working on writing an opera... well, maybe it's a musical... or possibly a play with songs in it... or something...

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My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 10/3/2007
Band Website: in development
Influences: david torn, bartok, david borden, mick karn, samuel barber, wim wenders, tarkovsky, jimi hendrix, bjork, charlie chaplin, robin williamson, john lee hooker, roman polanski, carter burwell, martin simpson, t-bone burnett, neal stephenson, talking heads, johnny depp, don delilo, doris lessing, thomas newman, son house, tom waits, william gaddis, aphex twin, squarepusher, thomas pynchon, fyodor dostoevsky, william gibson, mikhail bulgakov, django reinhart, tolstoy, marco beltrami, jon hassel, ry cooder, leonard bernstein, umberto eco, andy rinehart, the edge, erik satie, miles, coltrane, HHDL, beethoven, bob dylan, john lennon, gustavo santaolalla, arnold newman, nino rota, ennio morricone. jonathan lethem, douglas september, elliot goldenthal, john ford, iain banks

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Sounds Like: the typhoid
excerpt from "saved by deportation":dir: slawomir grunberg & robert podgursky. music: robby aceto. "Saved By Deportation" is the first feature length documentary film to tell the dramatic story of Polish Jews who escaped the Holocaust through their deportation to the Soviet Union. The film recounts the 1940 deportations of Polish Jews from Soviet-occupied eastern Poland to Gulag labor settlements in the Arctic north; life in Soviet Central Asia after release from the Gulag; and the deportees' experiences upon returning to Poland at the end of World War II and confronting the aftermath of the Holocaust. In recounting the epic saga of the deportations the film examines the essential cultural constructs upon which the deportees relied during their years of exile from 1940 to 1946. The film also addresses how inter-ethnic relations played out in the remote areas of the Soviet Union among the disparate nationalities of Jews, Poles, Russians, and Central Asians. for more information: www.logtv.com/tv
Record Label: Unsigned

My Blog

The Closure Myth screening on LinkTV

"The Closure Myth", Erica Street's delicate rendering of the story of anti-death penalty activist Abba Gayle to screen on LinkTV in December. Robby Aceto composed this film's thoughtful, meditative sc...
Posted by on Mon, 08 Dec 2008 06:27:00 GMT

septembers here again

more than a few years since we finished "oil tan bow" recorded with david torn, douglas september, and myself in bearsville... the music born on the road; driving through the deep south. time since; f...
Posted by on Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:44:00 GMT

ryan gosling; best actor nod

just pleased to see ryan gosling nominated for best actor, this year's oscars for his performance in "lars & the real girl". beautiful beautiful performance in possibly the only one film this year in ...
Posted by on Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:04:00 GMT

go see "lars"

if you have not yet (for whatever reason) seen the film "lars & the real girl" do yourself a favor and make the time. an incredibly sensitive reading/meditation on mental illness, family and community...
Posted by on Mon, 10 Dec 2007 05:57:00 GMT

rethinking santa

you can use this link to see jeremy levine's short film "Jolly Black Slaves".i know i'm re-thinking my '07 letter to santa claus...peace, everyone. RAhttp://current.com/items/77141702_jolly_black_slav...
Posted by on Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:39:00 GMT

primary impulses

my fascination has always been with the temporal. the transitory nature of a note and how it can live or die, the instant of the attack, guided by pressure and the minute or gross wriggling of fingers...
Posted by on Wed, 17 Oct 2007 08:21:00 GMT