Afe  [The Big Sleep]





FOA Boccaccio and Afe Records present: THE BIG SLEEP


The program

We were not involved in organizing any live event since November 2005, when the successful Afe-Party for our tenth birthday took place at CSA Baraonda in Segrate, near Milan... Now we gladly accepted the invitation received from our friends at FOA Boccaccio who proposed us to set up an ambient / electronic night that, as hours pass, will turn into a real sleep concert.

This particular kind of concerts - theorized and practiced for the first time in the early Eighties by american musician Robert Rich - is conceived to lull the listeners into an intermediate state between sleeping and waking, creating the right conditions to let the musical suggestions mix with anyone's flux of conscience and oniric images, giving birth to lucid dreams suspended between reality and imagination.

The musicians/bands that will take part to the concert are the following: aal / Amon (Andrea Marutti) / Andrea Ferraris (Ur / Airchamber 3), Davide Del Col (Ornament / Echran), Figli di Diapa (a034, mbst8 e Hyena), Hue, Opium (Sola Translatio), Scum, Sil Muir (Andrea Ferraris e Andrea Marutti), Sparkle in Grey.

Most of them will play solo sets, and many will join forces to present collaborative sets, collective improvisations and unheard combinations, never letting the music stop until dawn.

The concert will take place in the theater room of FOA Boccaccio: it will be a unique occasion to be part of a very particular event that gathers together many protagonists of the italian ambient / experimental / electronic scene.

Some folding-beds and mattresses will be available to the public, video projections and an ambient bar will entertain those who prefer to stay awake. The concert will end in the early morning, as the light of day fill the music venue.

We highly recommended to bring your sleeping bag with you. We also suggest pillows, blankets and everything else that could make your experience more comfortable.



The musicians/bands

Here you can read more details about all the musicians who will take part to THE BIG SLEEP.

a034 (Figli di Diapa) a034 is a one-man band conducted by Stefano Pulici from Mlan, Italy. This project was created some ten years ago without any definite ambitions and was brought to the public attention when its first CD album was released by Tijuana Records (...the very first manifestation of what later became Bar La Muerte...) back in 1999. After some years of live-sets experience, a034 got in touch with Acid Drops, an italian techno group involved in parties mostly based on industrial sounds and hardcore beats. This fact allowed him to start playing more often especially at free parties. He moved from laptop to grooveboxes and abandoned the concept of "tracks" to create a random assembling of techno patterns. Today a034 is still alive and kicking and Stefano is also involved in other projects such as Nuke Satori, Six Figure Nigga, Figli di Diapa (with Hyena and mbst8) and Lava (with Bruno Dorella of OvO and Ronin fame). During the years, his music was released on CD and vinyl by labels such as Bar La Muerte, Hydrophonic, Blackbean and Placenta, FVA, Homesleep, Napalmed and Blackqirex. His latest full-lenght will be released as a friendly co-production between Afe and Bar La Muerte in late April 2007.

aal aal is Davide Valecchi from Florence, Italy. He started this project in early 2001 with the precious support of Paolo Ippoliti and Laura Lovreglio [a.k.a. Logoplasm, owners of the S'Agita Recordings label]. Davide had a classical piano training in his childhood and then he focused his attention on electric guitars before finally discovering electronic music in the early '90s. He released two Cyberpunk / EBM albums as Diagonal Chains and a Drum'n'Bass album as Solenoid. He was briefly part of the Industrial / Nu-Metal band GF93 and he still is the guitarist of Videodiva, a band dealing with a mixture of Dark-Wave, Rock and Electronics. aal is conceived as an embodiment of a 'stream of consciousness', in which memories, dreams and portions of reality are mixed and cannot be separated. Electronics, concrete sounds and data flux try to evoke these elements following an istinctive course. An aal very special box-set containing five unreleased album recorded between 2001 and 2004 is going to be released soon by Afe.

Amon (Andrea Marutti) Andrea Marutti was born in 1970 and lives in Milan, Italy. He began his experiments with music in the early '90s using tapes and concrete elements. A few years later he also began to use synthesizers, samplers and other electronic devices, and founded the Lips Vago Digital Studio. His most well-known projects are Amon and Never Known. Several releases of Ambient / Dark Ambient music were published by labels such as Eibon Records, Amplexus, Drone Records, Taalem, etc. on CD and other medias. He is also responsible of many other projects dealing with different styles of electronic music ranging from Lo-Fi / Weird / Cheap Electronica to IDM (Wolkspurz & Ramirez, Lips Vago), Dada / Noise / Non-sense (Spiral). Recently he also started recording and releasing experimental/ambient tracks under his own name, in duo with Nimh / Giuseppe Verticchio as Hall of Mirrors, and again in duo with Andrea "Ics" Ferraris as Sil Muir. During the years he has published on his label - Afe - countless releases of electronic / experimental music created by a lot of italian and international musicians: Maurizio Bianchi, Bad Sector, Maeror Tri, Telepherique, De Fabriek, Ultra Milkmaids, Aidan Baker, Dronaement, etc.

Andrea Ferraris (Ur / Airchamber 3) Andrea Ferraris is a self-teached musician coming from an hardcore / experimental background, he started recording and touring Europe during the nineties with bands like Burning Defeat and Onefineday. While evolving his listenings and his technique, he started playing with musician hailing from an heterogeneous background, be it rock, electronics, etc. With the passing of years he developed a natural attitude for experimental music, using more and more effects/instruments and different techniques and involving electronics/laptop in the process. Actually he plays with the electro-acoustic ensemble Airchamber 3 and with the kraut-industrialist combo Ur. He has also played or is playing with: Deep End, Ultraviolet Makes Me Sick, Ulna, Sil Muir, Luminance Ratio, St.ride, Andrea Marutti, Cria Cuervos, Marylin Tognolli, Valerio Zucca (Abstract Q/3EEM), Alessandro Cartolari (Anatrofobia), Alessandro Buzzi, Claudio Parodi, En, Permanent Scar, Polis. His music was published on labels such as: Afe, Camera Obscura, Genet Records, Green, Fratto 9 Under the Sky, Zahr, Shove, Household Name, Loveboat, Chewz. Andrea currently writes for Blow Up magazine, Chain DLK, Sands-Zine and Sodapop.

Davide Del Col (Ornament / Echran) Davide Del Col started his solo adventure as Ornament in 1999, with the venomous tape "Strychninlovenectar", which consisted of four structured death-industrial tracks. His second work entitled "Adorers", was released shortly after on Oktagön Records. In 2000 Davide self-released in a few copies "Unicorn Lullaby" (...later re-released by Afe...), his most oniric and beautiful album where he embraced deep Dark-Ambient territories always keeping Ornament's most distinctive features: the cyclic reiteration of the main sequences and his visionary attitude. The abysmal "Yzaniaveis" was released in 2002 by Blade Records in one of its own best tradition special packages. Ornament's latest release entiled "Effortless" was made available in mp3 format by the author in late 2003 on his own web pages. This work represented a return to the project's harsh roots. Davide Del Col is now involved in a new electro-experimental project called Echran along with Fabio Volpi (a member of the Otolab collective). They have just finished to record their first album and often make live appearances. He is also taking care of his cosmic-influenced electronic solo project called O Diabo De Vila Velha.

Hue Hue (aka Matteo Uggeri) is musically active since 1994 with various projects that include different artistic attitudes. Among them: Der Einzige and Normality/Edge (noise, industrial, experimental music, for what these labels may mean) and Sparkle in Grey (melancholic electronic and field recordings, now transformed into an electronic post-rock band). During the years he has collaborated with many other musicians such as De Fabriek, Urkuma, Claudio Rocchetti, Ether, Punck, Cria Cuervos, Fhievel, Nicola Ratti, MB/Maurizio Bianchi, OvO and Telepherique. His last release (2006) is "Un’estate senza pioggia" (A Rainless Summer), it mixes field recordings and melancholically sounds of acoustic and electric guitars, glitch electronics and other instruments played by various friends and collaborators such as aal, Giuseppe Verticchio and many others. His forthcoming projects are an album, entitled "Erimos", in collaboration with Fhievel and Maurizio Bianchi about the concept of 'desert', and a duo project called Batalha with Nuno Moita of the Grain of Sound label.

Hyena (Figli di Diapa) Giona Vinti, born 1977 in Milan, Italy, begun experimenting with electronic music in 2001. After the first amorphous attempts at Electro and Techno he found his own dimension creating tracks and live-sets in a very dark Breakcore vein. Some of his tracks, released under the Hyena moniker, are out on compilations by Kapotte Radio Records (Belgium) and Reconfiguration Records (China). A net-album is present in the Nuke Satori catalogue. Lately he's busy with a Ritual / Ambient / Breakcore side-project named Fekete. He is part of the musical / theatrical act EstremiRimedi and of the posthuman art collective NoHumanNoCry.

mbst8 (Figli di Diapa) Luca Boriani begins his sonic adventure playing in filthy and abandoned warehouses. Luckily, a few year later he realizes about the limitations imposed by such a scene, and decide to migrate to other shores... In order to play his music he employed different techniques, styles and machines, until he – recently - discovered the possibility of creating his own audiovisual softwares. He is involved in many projects: video soundtracks, theater music, installations, performances, etc. He's also professionally working in the video area. He currently prefers to improvise disturbing frequencies which are sometimes dirtied by melody... He is an active member of the NoHumanNoCry collective and of Cho Ipotesi, a workgroup centered on documentary movies.

Opium (Sola Translatio) Teo Zini was born in Milan in 1979 and currently lives in Varese, Italy. With Opium, his main music project, he has released several CDs: "The Reborn of the Rebel Angel" (Hic Sunt Leones), "Floatdownstream", "Sympathetic Flying Objects" and "Algorithms" (Silentes), and "Watercolors" (Practising Nature). He is part of Sola Translatio along with Alio Die. This project has three CD releases until now: "Ad infinitum" (Eibon Records), "Mother Sunrise" (Hypnos) and "Enigma" (Hic Sunt Leones). Teo also collaborates with director / musician Francesco Paladino in Nosesoul ("Angel Ghost and Human Shades" for Hic Sunt Leones) and Jason Corder ("Thepresentday" for Practising nature. He is also involved in the techno-ambient project Ironya along with Steve P. Two Ironya mp3 albums are available for free download on Teo's website.

Scum Scum was born as a way to experiment with uncompromising electroacoustic music. It is an open collective that also declares its intentions through installations, videos and other art forms. The group was founded in 2003 by Simone Castelli (synth) and Michele Bengala (bass), both coming from different experiences but united by their common passion for unconventional and experimental music. During the years Scum have successfully performed in the underground circuit, especially in squatts / social centers. They self-released their first demo entitled "Scum" in 2004. A DVD entitled "Canti alla suprema delizia" and "Fuerenergie", a CD which contains the soundtrack of the homonymous ballet + fire show, were released later. "Fuerenergie" is a collaboration with the Chasma-Ges performers. Michele is also involved in the Punk-Rock'n'rollers Long Dong Silver, while Simone is also part of the Elettro-EBM oriented Filthy Generation along with Claudio Giuntini - another collaborator to the Scum project - and Attilio Naddei, ex-member of Narcolexia. Simone is also involved in Bite the Sun with Francesco "Druzil", a music project dealing with experimental electronics, IDM and Power Noise. He is part of the FOA Boccaccio management collective.

Sil Muir (Andrea Ferraris e Andrea Marutti) Sil Muir is the latest guitar-based ambient/drone project of Andrea Ferraris and Andrea Marutti. Ferraris is a self-teached musician coming from an hardcore / experimental background. With the passing of years he developed a natural attitude for experimentation. Actually he plays with Airchamber 3 and Ur. He has also played - or is playing - with: Deep End, Ultraviolet Makes Me Sick, Ulna, Luminance Ratio, St.ride, Cria Cuervos, One Fine Day, Burning Defeat, Marylin Tognolli, Valerio Zucca, Alessandro Cartolari, Claudio Parodi, En, Permanent Scar, Polis. His music was published by Camera Obscura, Genet Records, Fratto 9 Under the Sky, Zahr, Shove, Loveboat, etc... Marutti began his experiments with music in the early '90s. He is better known for his Amon and Never Known projects. He had several releases on Eibon, Amplexus, Drone, Taalem, etc. He is also responsible of many other projects dealing with different styles of electronic music. Recently he also started recording and releasing music under his own name and in duo with Nimh as Hall of Mirrors. During the years he has published on his label - Afe - countless releases of electronic / experimental music created by a lot of italian and international musicians.

Sparkle in Grey Sparkle in Grey was born in 1999 as an electronic solo project of Matteo "Hue" Uggeri, but in 2005 it became an open ensemble, collaborating with other musicians who play ‘rock’ instruments. The result is a blend of electronic melodies and rhythmical beats, mixed with field recordings and concrete sounds. Today the line-up includes guitars, bass, drums, percussions, glockenspiel, laptop, toys, beats and a violin. So far only one album has been published, the double "The Echoes of Thiiings" (Afe Records), recorded at the time when Hue was the only member of the project, featuring many remixes from The Impossible Flower, Pleo, Telepherique, Never Known, Luca Sigurtà, aal... A new record is going to be published soon by Cold Current. It's the dark and melancolic concept about clouds entitled "Nefelodhis", made in collaboration with Maurizio Bianchi/MB. Another record, "A Quiet Place", recorded with the help of Giuseppe Ielasi (Fringes, Hapna), is still waiting to be published.