The magic spell to navigate the turbulent currents that agitate the waters of the Roman artistic scene is only one: alliance and affinity. For years Zero and Short Theatre have been doing just that, concerting together to make the best of the artistic life that moves the city. It is from this connection that the event of Saturday September 7 is shaped, coagulating around Artetetra, letting the presences of {scope} and Sound of Confusion emerge.
Artetetra is a label and independent curatorial project that, for over ten years, has been promoting practices related to the themes of digital folklore and the concept of exoticism in late globalisation. The project has curated music festivals such as Giardino Magnetico and Future Pidgin, collaborating with Zero on Hyperlocal Club Buahbatu at the Triennale Milano.
{scope} is a project born in 2020, when musicians Matteo Pennesi, Luca Sguera and Laura Agnusdei were selected by Holydays Festival to be part of the artistic residency “A week from Monday” in Scopoli, a small Umbrian village in the Val di Chienti. From the residency emerges the first work, published by Rous Records and Viaindustriae, which presents the unique interplay of this unusual trio, capable of creating complex soundscapes in which the micro-sounds of Pennesi’s granular synthesis meet Agnusdei’s saxophones, while Sguera’s keyboards and prepared piano provide percussive and melodious riffs. In early 2022, the trio found a new opportunity to work together, this time coordinated by producer Francesco Piro, who hosted them in his studio in Bari. The studio, once an indie rock club in the city centre, closed since the beginning of the pandemic, was transformed by Piro into a cosy recording studio where {scope} spent a week improvising and editing material. The second album Nightcap (Kohlhaas, 2024) is an explosion of all the components of the first one: frenetic rhythms, clattering electronics and free jazz raptures coexist coherently with quieter atmospheres. Piro’s productive touch for electro-acoustic details is what elevates the album to a more refined sonic experience that finds its beauty in a continuous change of perspective from closed to open form. Are they songs? It is hard to say, and probably answering is not important.
Sound of Confusion aka Chiara Colli has worked in music for over fifteen years, with a particular interest in the national and international underground scene. She has collaborated with various newspapers (Il Mucchio, Alias, Il Fatto Quotidiano), presented radio programmes on various local stations and from 2013 to 2021 was music editor for Edizioni ZERO. Today she is part of the Battiti team, a historic radio programme on Radio Rai 3.
presented at Short Theatre 2024 within Eco:frequenze funded by Next Generation EU
ph. Matteo Bellomo e Stefania Zanetti
