Paco Maddalena (Italy)

From the album Vertical Panoramas
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PACO MADDALENA (soundartist, musician, filmmaker)

My name is Roberto Maddalena (nicknamed Paco), I am an italian Director of Photography, Filmmaker and Sound Artist, graduated from DAMS in Bologna (History of Art, old system).

I am the author of films, documentaries, short films and experimental installations, some of which over the years have been selected and awarded in various national and international festivals including the Venice Biennale, the Rome Film Festival and the Cefalù Film Festival.

Born in 1977, as a child I developed an interest in music playing the piano, but it was with the discovery of the electric guitar when I was 12 that I began a path of study and experimentation aimed at the contemporary.

Over the years, I have created soundtracks for various installations, short films, readings and theatrical performances: at first fascinated by sound experimentation through the unconventional use of the electric guitar, over the years I have cultivated a lively interest in field recordings, synthesizers and sound manipulation through audio editing software (I mainly use Ableton and Logic).

My work is characterized by the use of field recordings and manipulated noises (in digital and analogue), layered on sound drones created with the use of synthesizers (including Lyra 8, Moog Mother 32, etc.) and modular systems eurorack.

I have been living for some years in Puglia and I play in two post rock bands (Frida and Dora Maar),

I have a live sound project of silent films called 'Collettivo Zeit' together with two other musicians (Oh Petroleum and Meanwhile.in.Texas) and a solo-project of an experimental nature, where I weave field recordings, sound design and electroacoustic elements to produce tracks with a strong contemporary impact, in which melody, drone
music and soundscaping are the founding elements.

Over the years I have released albums and audiovisual projects for various experimental labels and collectives, including the Venetian Laverna.net, Giraffe Tapes, the French Camembert Électrique, Zeugma and Audiovisioni Elettriche / Tempo Reale.

Album: PANORAMI VERTICALI
Five tracks that involve a different vision, a new way of relating to the world around us, based on the essence of everyday environments soundscaping.

Hence the title of the ep, Panorami Verticali, intended as a new
interaction with the context, no longer ordinary but translated into a different dimension, perpendicular in this case, like the imaginary line that from the ground, passing through legs, reaches the head : the noises are rhythmically and harmonically autonomous, self-celebrating, free and dancing in the sound space and from the earth they rise to be recoded by the mind of the listener.

Disconnected from the normal cultural classification, sounds acquire an independent meaning, result of a different elaboration in each one, making the passive routine become presence and the ego, the individual, the listener, more than ever collective archetype, one with the sound context.

The sea (“Osservazione partecipata”), cars on the street, a train station, but also the sound of a gate and the empty garden of a school (“Troppe trame”), the interiors of a steel factory (“Basta che poi ci ricordiamo dove”), are the result of elaborate, dilated and intertwined field recording sessions, played with an 'organic' synth (Lyra 8, Soma), drones, tape loops and modified keyboards sequences.

Mix and Mastering at Zeit