Sanfilippo, Bruno

Artist: Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2009
This release from 2009 offers 72 minutes of soft ambience. So many ambient releases strive to achieve a stratospheric air, but this one actually focuses on a tranquillity that exists all around us at ground-level. Pacific drones coalesce but remain tenuous and vapory, never reaching a real density. These atmospherics mimic the air we breathe. Faint rattlings and wispy whistles hint at an ethereal realm that coexists with our material world. Expansive tones create languid ripples in the fabric of reality. Subtle percussion, muted by distance, emerge from the electronic fog, soon followed by sighing electronics that lend an illusionary substance to the milieu. Some of the sounds used to punctuate the fog are, in fact, quite corporeal (in a drastically understated manner). Vibrating pulsations twinkle in the pleasant murkiness, guiding the listener through the haze, leading the way to deeper regions of introspection. Bird noises lurk within the gentle whistles, blending aspects of the real world with the coexistent realm of psychic space. A union of outer and inner territories is achieved with delicate fusion. Sanfilippo's compositions flavor a harmonic presence with melodic traces, elusive but tangible enoughto stimulate the listener's cerebellum. Auxiliary electronics wafting in the sedate flow coax the mind from a state of rest into subtle cognitive activity.
 

Artist: Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2014
Argentinian Bruno Sanfilippo is a known quantity to listeners who keep a close ear on the ambient scene, and he has worked with a variety of ambient styles, on such fine albums as Indalo, on which he proves himself a synth pad master indeed. However, he’s also dabbled with solo piano pieces, as he did on Piano Textures, another fine recording. ClarOscuro takes this a step further with Sanfilippo’s first entry into the burgeoning field of what seems to be called “modern classical” these days. As far as I can tell, it means slightly classical or soundtracky type recordings made by people who aren’t necessarily classical musicans or classically trained. Correct me if I’m wrong. Add that to “post-rock” and “IDM” on the list of terms that make me and many others scratch our heads.

Anyway, that’s beside the point here. The point is that Sanfilippo’s entry into this field is a truly lovely and very self-assured album of pieces either for solo piano or for piano and strings. On this album, recorded in Barcelona, he’s helped out by Manuel del Fresno on violoncello and Pere Bardagi on violin. The string pieces are beautifully scored.

As one would expect, the usual influences crop up: Max Richter, Harold Budd, Arvo Pärt are all in evidence, but their presence is not obtrusive; these are merely the usual lazy music critic references, for this album is redolent of Sanfilippo’s personality, not theirs. It’s truly a beautiful collection.

Artist: Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2015
LTD 500
Inside Life" immerses the listener into magnificently expressive modern classical realms, tranquilly minimal, yet exquisitely nuanced, abundantly poignant and delicately filigree, where stirringly pensive sadness is masterfully counterpointed with hauntingly embracing stillness, while intensely evocative ambient subtleties are deliberately permeated by yearning haze. A truly fabulous bravura performance by Bruno Sanfilippo and his guests!
Richard Gürtler · ad21

This comes in Digisleeve 4 panel in an edition of 500.

Artist: Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2006
Bruno Sanfilippo is an artist who is quickly developing a well-respected name for himself in ambient circles. With this in mind, the aptly titled "InTRO" is a great place to acquaint oneself with Bruno's talents. Made up of seven distinct pieces, "InTRO" presents a variety of styles and sounds that all showcase Sanfilippo's skills.
"InTROworld" opens the disc with a combination of eastern percussion and woodwinds. Voices, or maybe it's something else, play on the edges of the track, adding a mystical and engaging sound to the proceedings. A very impressive opening and a suggestion of things to come. "InTROmental" follows, drone textured ambience oscillating through the soundfield. There are some interesting layers here, each stacked one on top of the other, only visible with careful examination. It's an engaging track, one that begs further listening. "InTROsacro" has a melancholy beauty to it, the sounds of wind and chimes and all manner of beautiful tones. Slight melodies float through the track, lightly hinting at a theme or an idea, small phrases just on the tips of tongues. Simply wonderful. "InTROpiano" features lovely piano work set against a drone backdrop. It's a fascinating blend of natural and unnatural sounds, a very effective meeting of sonic worlds. I imagine that this is a track that may well have inspired or at least influenced Sanfilippo's later release "Piano Textures" as it has a very similar flavor to it. "InTROvoices" begins with a simple drone, building in volume and strength, eventually joined by the sound of a rainstorm and other sounds from nature. It's a beautiful example of spaces created through the use of sound and imagination, quite simple and quite effective. "InTROvisions" blends in directly from the last track, a slight melody played through alien strings. Slight variations on the melody play as the track increases, giving it a feeling of being a living organism, slowly undulating underneath the sun's light. Very beautiful. "InTROpassion" closes the disc, lovely piano and mournful strings overtop a quiet drone. A delicate blend of sounds and feelings combining to create a full environment and space.
Lovely work. I've often thought that the mettle of an artist is proven in their ability to work equally comfortably in a variety of styles.
With "InTRO", Bruno Sanfilippo has shown that he's capable of working in a number of different forms, moving easily between styles and sounds, showing an ear and an ability in all of the areas he presents here. Certainly Sanfilippo's reputation as an artist to watch is well deserved, and I would cite "InTRO" as a fine piece of evidence to support that claim.

Here the last copy!

Artist: Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2007
The sequentially titled pieces in Piano Textures, by the Argentine contemporary composer, Bruno Sanfilippo, are nothing short of a gorgeous composition. Period. Simple and elegant, mesmerizing and haunting, the multi-velocity sampled 1923 Steinway shines as the most versatile instrument in the ensemble. And it shines in the hands of Sanfilippo, who received a degree as a Music Superior Professor in the Galvani Conservatory in Buenos Aires.
In his evenly paced recording, Sanfilippo gently strokes the hammered strings with a touch of reverse reverb, Armenian duduk and a pinch of synthesized sound.
Releasing on his own label, ad21music, which Sanfilippo runs with fellow composer, Max Corbacho, the sessions recoded during the nights of March '07, fall somewhere between ambient, modern classical, and pure meditation music. This is not your background music. I absolutely love turning up the volume, and letting every hypnotic and melancholic note weep gently through the night. For the lovers of Max Richter, Eluvium, Rafael Anton Irisarri, and Zbigniew Preisner.

Artist: Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2009
This CD from 2009 features 51 minutes of gentle ambient music. As implied by the release’s title, the principle instrument here is a grand piano (a model 1923 Steinway D, to be exact).
The latter has been sampled, and the notes are accompanied by electronically generated atmospheres. The result, as one might expect, is ambience seasoned by classical influences. Sanfilippo plays gentle Steinway chords that linger with a congenial sovereignty. The melodies pursue an extremely relaxed temperament with each expression isolated by reverent pauses (which are suitably filled with languidly drifting texturals). The electronics are primarily tenuous, establishing vaporous environs not unlike the mists that cloak a beach in the dawn hours.
These tonalities engulf the music in translucence, a luster delicately penetrated by the piano notes. Some of the atmospherics exhibit a suppressed grittiness reminiscent of distant electrical currents crackling in an open field. For the most part, though, the ambience remains moderate and courteous. The compositions are ethereal yet compelling. While most ambient music relies entirely on the ebb and flow of harmonic auralscapes, these songs employ a melodic structure generated by the piano keys. Those melodies are then enhanced into pleasant phantasms by the conjunctive application of soft tones. The fragile compositions evoke moods the exact nature of which are wholly derived from the mind of the listener.

Artist: Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2016
" Piano Textures 4" sees a continuation of Mr Sanfilippo’s journey through refined electro-acoustic aural realms. It contains nine narrative compositions of intense piano minimalism, treatments, field recordings and sophisticated electronics evoking both mystic and dreamy moods. The timeless, at times even fluid character of the outcome is clear from the start as is the neo-classical perfume shiny through gently on various passages while it now moves even closer to the imaginative works of Ludovico Einaudi and Harold Budd. Especially the sonic poems "Piano Textures 4 VI" and "Piano Textures 4 VII" show this most clearly with their sustained dynamics while I personally rate the highly emotive/cinematic "Piano Textures 4 VIII" as the highlight of the 42-minute release. The stillness found in the Eno-esq closing piece kept resonating gently in my head long after the record came to an end. All in all, "Piano Textures 4" is a mesmerizing piano-based ambient canvas giving a voice to in-depth worlds. Bert Strolenberg · SonicImmersion
 

Artist: Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 1998
It’s too easy to call Bruno’s music ‘new age’ because his music is too varied, too well-considered, too beautiful. Listen to the track ‘Seven lakes’ on the album and you know what I mean. Especially beautiful is ‘White wind’ with the acoustic guitar of Jorge Alvarado against a wall of strings.


Here the last copy!

Artist: Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2015
"1631 Recordings pitches Bruno Sanfilippo's The Poet as his “finest work to date,” which, though it might appear to be nothing more than the usual hyperbole by a record label, might very well be close to the truth. At the very least, one could say that The Poet is right up there with Sanfilippo's finest releases.
Strings are the first sounds heard on the forty-minute recording, a not insignificant detail in emphasizing that Sanfilippo's interest centers primarily on the music, not his own piano playing. It appears, too, of course, but with an elegant restraint that complements the strings rather than vies with them for attention. Sequenced first, “The Poet” inaugurates the recording on an emotionally charged note, the music filled with longing and sadness, after which “Before Nightfall” perpetuates the opener's elegiac tone with a melancholy lullaby that's again wondrously realized in an understated piano-and-strings arrangement. Even at this early stage, it's clear that Sanfilippo is intent on using technique in the service of emotional effect; he's certainly capable of impressing the listener with all manner of pianistic flourishes, but in a representative setting such as “The Legend of the Sailor” he keeps it simple by concentrating on wistful, single-note melodies and chords.
Moods of varying kinds are featured on the recording. The haunting “Silk Offering” exudes mystery in the tentative wisps of melody that slowly usher forth from the piano and strings. The foreboding hinted at in “Silk Offering” moves more audibly to the forefront during “An Omen,” interesting also for being performed by strings alone, sometimes to nightmarish effect. The album's most dramatic change-up occurs in “Iron Horse” when Sanfilippo plays (I'm guessing) the piano's inner strings to generate an almost gamelan-inflected meditation that wouldn't sound out of place emanating from a Japanese temple. In a few cases (e.g., “The Book Without Words” and the brief “Dead's Hope”), he opts for a more elaborate, orchestral presentation that, while it does add extra colour to the recording, is less effective when heard alongside the quieter settings, more powerful despite their lower decibel level.
Sanfilippo's music might warrant the minimalism label with respect to its uncluttered presentation, but it's hardly minimal in its emotional effect. His gift for imbuing chamber classical settings with deep feeling is perhaps his greatest one; with that in mind, it would be hard to think of anyone better qualified to compose the film soundtrack for a literary adaptation than Sanfilippo"

Artist: Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2018
Unity, is an emotionally evocative collection that moves the listener through moments that exalt the senses. Through cyclical and minimalist sound, the composer creates visceral experiences that are both ethereal and hauntingly beautiful"

Artist: Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2015
LTD 500
UPON CONTACT REWORKED is a collaborative work from Bruno Sanfilippo that features some of the most highly acclaimed artists from the electronic music scene including Francesco Giannico, Olan Mill, Leonardo Rosado, Jorge Haro, Quivion and Hior Chronik in which an original piece written for piano is re-envisioned by each artist.

Artist: Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2012
The title Urbs derives from the prominent incorporation urban sound environments, recorded by Sanfilippo in urban environments such as train stations, streets, bars and other public areas to explore the boundaries between the textural sounds which surround all of us day to day, and the nature of composed sound art such as music. These “real world” sound textures merge with more traditional electronics such as synthesizers and samplers, leaving no doubt as to the composed and “intentional” nature of these soundscapes.
Gentle and evocative, subtly textural and transporting, Urbs is something we genuinely expect to become a long-term favorite.

Artist: Mathias Grassow + Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2010
Delicate Steinway Old Lady Grand Piano impressions and subtle, air-filled drones. Mathias Grassow lays down a series of gossamer drone textures reminiscent of distant fogs - hazy, grey beds of transparent tone with shifting densities that seep into the consciousness softening the atmosphere, drenching the soundscape. These electronic formations at times recede and hang in the background allowing Bruno Sanfilippo's piano work to dominate, but in other places they well up and fill the senses becoming dense, intense, engrossing. The piano parts are achingly beautiful and melodic on some tracks - sparse, unhurried developments that seem to pour straight from the heart of the player.
There are also darker passages of finger runs looming from the relative stillness of the synths. Sometimes the ivories sink deep within the mists, reverberating gently, becoming a part of the air or are so heavily effected as to merge with the backdrop.

Here the last copy!

Artist: Max Corbacho + Bruno Sanfilippo
P: 2003
INDALO is the first collaboration work between both artists, inspired by a join trip to the South of Spain. The whole CD represents an exploratory excursion to atmospheric ambient textures of a dark and dreamy beauty, a deep kind of ritual echoes. Structurally this CD presents seven soundscapes, carefully placed, starting with some rythmic movements, from the walking groove of "Indalo", driving the listener over the atmospheric synth lines, to the more relaxed and introspective realms of the following tracks. The textures are made based on a mix of field recordings, computer manipulated samples and spontaneously created tracks on synths and samplers. Strange far-away noises, swirling windy ancient echoes, subtle percussions, distant acoustic sounds and undulating synthlayers conform this work, all selected and presented in a deep, full of emotion, organic experience.

Here the last copy!

Artist: Various Artists
P: 2010
ClassXX is a new label for contemporary and expanding music to touch, explore and stretch the classical genre and they kick off with a fantastic and varied set of modern classical ambient/electronica by artists such as Bruno Sanfilippo, Mathias Grassow, Chris Edwards, Tomas Weiss and many others.
This is a frustratingly schizophrenic compilation. Out of Line is a perfectly appropriate title, because to these ears, there is almost a clock-like rhythm swinging from the pompous and over-wrought to the restrained and affecting.
The label´s stated intent is to explore the possibilities of so-called "neo-classical" music, brooking "no rules, no boundaries, no restrictions". But the anticipated "crossover" sounds more like a collision.
For some artists seriously over-egg the pudding, while others are more thrifty with their ingredients. I have no idea what feelings Chris Edwards harbours for Bucharest, but his opener dedicated to the city is so saccharine that he must have fallen goofily head over heels in love there. The palate is however immediately cleansed by ”Lost”, a tart, toy-like chamber piece by Eric Schwartz that sounds a bit like a music box trying to remember the tune ”Greensleeves”. Michael Travlos´ ”Indigo” is a angular, modernist collage of whispers, plucked strings, and turgid cello. Rüdiger Gleisburg´s string quartet ”Unfulfilled Longing” is so effective in rousing real emotion that it indeed leaves you unfulfilled by its mere two hundred and five seconds.
And so we continue to be cast between moods and styles: fractured spoken word, tongue-clucking and erratic piano by Thamnos (a duo featuring compiler Tomas Weiss) is followed directly by the über-symphonics of Nostalgia (another Weiss side project), which gives way to Maik Sever´s ”Division”. A lone piano being caressed by a slight breeze of strings, it is a perfect example of how one can compose modern Romantic music without resorting to melodrama.
However, the absolute revelation of the album is the cello duet between Donja Djember and Insa Schirmer (who together made a significant contribution to Hauschka´s excellent album ”Ferndorf”). It is spectacularly performed.
And after continued see-sawing, the album anomaly: the stately, weightless and electronic ”Silence Calls” by Weiss and Mathias Grassow, at nearly thirteen minutes also by far the longest track.
"El Ceibo" by Bruno Sanfilippo makes for a lovely epilogue and final impression.