BELFI, ANDREA - BETWEEN NECK & STOMACH (CD)

"Andrea Belfi was born in 1979. He has been playing drums since the age of fourteen. He studied art in Milan and has been working in the experimental music field since 2000. In 2002 AB embarked on a vast project, which, in time, would become Between Neck & Stomach. The first recordings took place at Valerio Tricoli's (member of 3/4HadBeenEliminated) house in Bologna. Between Neck & Stomach 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. In this challenging album 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. This album sketches imaginary landscapes where drums, guitars and voices blend into a bunch of eclectic tracks, which, in spite of their radical minimalist roots, are definitively worthy of the name 'songs'." (label info)