LP [KHS 030] Listen / Buy
{scope} came to life in 2020, when musicians Laura Agnusdei, Matteo Pennesi and Luca Sguera got selected for Holydays Festival, an artist residency in Scopoli, a small village in Umbria, central Italy.
Despite having never played together before, the musicians found a common musical language which emerged in their first album A week from Monday, recorded during the residency and released by ViaIndustriae and Rous Records.
At the start of 2022 a new opportunity arose for them to team up again, this time coordinated by producer Francesco Piro who invited them to his studio in Bari, southern Italy.
The studio, in which the trio spent a week improvising and editing material, was originally an indie rock club that Piro transformed into a cozy recording room after the club’s closure at the start of the pandemic.
Now, their second album Nightcap brings out all the components of the previous one: frantic rhythms, blubby electronics and free jazz explosion coexist coherently in more peaceful atmospheres. The production touch of Piro’s fine taste for electroacoustic details is what elevates the album to a more refined sonic experience where the beauty lies in the continuously shifting perspective between closed and open form.
On a conceptual level, Nightcap is a parodic criticism of the sterile lounge aesthetics of so-called airspace design, as shown in the artwork realized by Matteo Bellomo and Stefania Zanetti, whose photographs stage colorful yet unlikely cocktails obtained by mixing elements of differing nature.
Are these songs? Hard to say, the answer isn’t that important.
Laura Agnusdei: tenor and baritone sax, kazoo, synth, sampler
Matteo Pennesi: synths, granular synthesis, piano
Luca Sguera: prepared piano, percussions, synths
Francesco Piro: vocals, processing, percussions, synths, panic attacks
Recorded, produced and mixed by Francesco Piro at Kabuki studio, January 2022.
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.
Cut by Theo Krieger at SST.
Photography by Matteo Bellomo and Stefania Zanetti.
Graphic design by Nicola Chemotti Beutel.
Printed by Legno.
Edition of 300 copies.
