Stefano Pilia, born in Genoa in 1978 and long based in Bologna, is an Italian guitarist, electroacoustic composer and multi-instrumentalist. He has released a series of records on Italian and foreign labels, toured Europe and the United States, and collaborated widely, moving between the drone and song, improvisation and composition, with a guitar tone that owes as much to minimalism as to rock. He was a member of 3/4HadBeenEliminated with Valerio Tricoli and Claudio Rocchetti, plays bass in Massimo Volume, and has worked with David Grubbs, Oren Ambarchi and many others.
On Phren, Marta Salogni and Stefano Pilia build a shared electro‑acoustic architecture where guitar, tape machines and field recordings circulate like memory in motion. Signals move through modular processes, echoes and Revox loops until origin and reflection blur, turning six slow‑unfolding pieces into a living study of sound, time and feeling.
*100 copies limited edition* Sculptural, dreamlike and intimately detailed, Precious Moments is the fourth album by singer and composer Oliver Mann - this time in collaboration with acclaimed Bologna electro-acoustic composer and guitarist Stefano Pilia. A tender remembrance across nine short tracks exploring the affinity and thrills of friendship in a time when we all have internalised distance, the album features guests Mick Turner (Dirty Three / Mess Esque / Cat Power) and a scene stealing ca…
300 copies. The result of a long period of study and retirement in a house in the Bologna countryside in the first three months of 2018, Kenosis renews the meeting between Stefano Pilia and Massimo Pupillo (already together on several tours of ZU and in the Zu93 project, together with David Tibet). A Greek word of Gnostic derivation (literally meaning "emptying"), Kenosis is the result of a process of composition that saw the two musicians move away from their usual writing methods and from the …
Returning to Die Schachtel with his forth full-length with the label, the Genoa born, Bologna based, guitarist and electroacoustic composer, Stefano Pilia, delivers “Lacinia”, a new, immersive cycle of compositions, delving deeper into the realm of metaphysical, spiritual, and divine meaning, weaving astounding arrangements of sonority from a palette of synths, strings, brass, organ, various electroacoustic instruments, and percussion. Resting at a refined intersection of the acoustic and electr…
* Limited to 100 hand-numbered copies. Pink colored c40 cassette with white imprint. Comes in regular jewel case and 4pp 170gsm paper covers. Includes download code. * In a forthright response to the always speculative query, "Which musicians would you like to see collaborate", Coherent States proudly presents the "Na boca do Alvanel" album by David Maranha and Stefano Pilia. Delving deeper, "and why?" becomes clear: Stefano’s extended guitar manipulation and David’s ethereal violin, flute & org…
“Padre, fammi partire!” (Father, make me leave!). Franco Battiato, orphan of a father, sings this verse in "Da Orienta a Occidente". He declaims it solemnly and decisively. More than a request for a blessing, it is a declaration of intent. The force with which this prayer is recited admits of no weakness, no compromise and no obstacle. To leave is necessary. The volcano is there, showing the way. The power of this phrase reflects the impatience of a hawk that, tied to the arm of its falconer, wa…
Huge Tip! Fame di Vento is Manuel Zurria's latest work. A triple CD to evoke the many suggestions and projects that have taken place in recent years, full of collaborations, of the Sicilian flautist. Fame Di Vento is also an idealized homage to Alighiero Boetti, a nomad by culture and vocation. In his footsteps, Manuel draws on the most diverse cultures, from the Lithuanian mystics to India and Sicily, from just-intonation to European-style minimalism. As he has already done in the past, Zurria …
Everything about Stefano Pilia’s spiritual journey always seemed to point directly towards ‘Spiralis Aurea’, his astounding 2022 release for Die Schachtel, a deeply resonating piece of art that intertwines traces of sacred geometry, collective experience and elusive connections between nature and human kind. ‘Spiralis Aurea Trio’ out in January on Maple Death Records, showcases the electric guitar ensemble formed by Stefano Pilia, Alessandra Novaga and Adrian Utley (Portishead) during three live…
75 copies, blue vinyl. Sometimes records just vibrate with a magical aura propagating endless energy and timeless positionment. Stefano Pilia & Valerio Tricoli have been maestros in their respective careers when it comes to dancing between modern concrete, unimagined landscapes and electroacoustic experiments slowly creating and almost hand-sculpting two of the most singular paths in the European avant garde scene.
After their long tenure in experimental collective 3/4HadBeenEliminated (Häpna, D…
Collaboration piece between two major players in the contemporary Italian electro-acoustic music scene. Alberto Boccardi has studied composition and music theory at Milan's Music Civic Academy and has frequently collaborated with Lawrence English, Nicola Ratti, or Maurizio Abate among others while Stefano Pilia is a prolific guitarist and electro-acoustic theorist with a massive body of work and compositions. He has collaborated with Mike Watt, Nico Vascellari, David Tibet or Valerio Tricoli to …
Venturing into untapped realms of creative exploration, the Genoa born, Bologna based, guitarist and electroacoustic composer, Stefano Pilia, returns to Die Schachtel with “Spiralis Aurea”, a double LP of material that intertwines traces of sacred geometry, collective experience and elusive connections between nature and human kind.
** Orange cassette with black imprint. Comes in regular jewel case and 4pp 150gsm paper covers. Limited to 70 hand-numbered copies ** Hailing from different corners of the experimental music world and following 2018’s acclaimed performance at Centro d’Arte in Padova and a plethora of solo releases, Alessandra Novaga and Stefano Pilia return to discography with their very first studio collaboration. Recorded in 2017, "Glimpses of a Day" comprises a series of nine compositions for electric guitar …
**Purple vinyl edition** Distorted classical choral recordings, synths, processed guitar… The exquisitely complex human-machine interface experiments conducted by Stefano Pilia are kept in a delicate balance by John Duncan‘s lyrics and the soulful quality of his vocals, for an album of electroacoustic songs that are a unique blend for both artists. Seeds and memories from the past are re-actualized in the present through a machine electroacoustic compositional process creating a dark, gloomy and…
* Edition of 75 * Originally released on CD in 2006 on Sedimental 'The Suncrows Fall And Tree' pushed Stefano Pilia to the forefront of the European experimental avant garde scene showcasing his incredible knack for creating beautiful soundscapes, blissful ambience and electroacoustic compositions that speak to the heart. His sound can aptly be defined ‘ecstatic', in the purest sense of the term, as a result of the exploration of these points of focus, through multi-instrumental practice and inv…
Milan based Die Schachtel presents In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni (We turn round in the night and, behold, we are consumed by Fire) - a work for solo guitar by the Italian composer Stefano Pilia, the second release to appear on a new series from the imprint - Decay Music, highlighting inspired contemporary experimental efforts in the ambient, ethereal, and emotively abstract.Born in Genoa and based in Bologna, Pilia is a guitar player and electro-acoustic composer concerned with the scul…
Live recording from the performance of The Wired Salutation at Hebbel am Ufer Theater, August 18, 2013, Berlin. Interested in systems of rules and ordering principles that structure social behavior, Angela Bulloch creates multidisciplinary installations that explore creative connections between modern aesthetic and digitalism through various combinations of light, video, text, sound and different objects. Her functional works provoke the viewer’s way of interpretation of a different type of info…
**restocked** Oren Ambarchi, Stefano Pilia, and Massimo Pupillo (Zu) team up for an instrumental trip bridging post-rock, drone, and improvisation. Limited 180-gram LP in silk-screened sleeve with artwork by Sara D'Uva. Includes download code. Since the late '90s Oren Ambarchi has been exploring new ground as composer and multi-instrumentalist (mainly focusing on guitar), fusing a wide range of influences and inspiration from improvisation, contemporary music, modern electronics, and rock…
**Ltd edition Blue vinyl** quoting Tinymixtape "Stefano Pilia’s Blind Sun New Century Christology is a sacred guitar-scape, a latenight ritual and/or animal sacrifice performed in silence in the light of the moonStefano Pilia, prolific solo performer and founding member of projects such as 3/4hadbeeneliminated (together with Claudio Rocchetti & Valerio Tricoli) and In Zaire, invites us to see the „Blind Sun“ - and also to experience a „New Century Christology“ as the subtitle of the record revea…
Dust & Mirrors’ is the second full-length album by the trio of Andrea Belfi (drums, percussion, electronics), David Grubbs (electric guitar, piano, voice), and Stefano Pilia (electric guitar). It follows 2010’s ‘Onrushing Cloud’ LP and finds the trio confidently taking stabs in a number of opposed directions. It dramatically widens the terrain in which the group operates. Between albums, the three musicians worked together on David Grubbs’s 2013 album ‘The Plain Where The Palace Stood’, and took…
A sublime constellation of sound miniatures divided into 3 long tracks (at once random and simultaneous) of delicate field recordings and found objects transformed and woven into intricate electronic tapestries, a slowly building "ambient" work with a unique sense of melancholy. Stefano Pilia's Strings is a diary composition began in 2004, a series of subtle epiphanies followed by a somewhat enigmatic resolve or 'answers', richly spacious explorations that appears suspended in time, with distan…
Following volume I (8mm, 2008) and II (Presto?!. 2009), and previously released in a super small cassette edition on Tulip, Stefano Pilia's Last Days III is finally available in a new remastered one sided LP edition. The intuitions of the first two chapters of this series of 'Last days' shine in 'Atlantic City' in all their beauty. Stefano’s touch is so warm and gentle, always unique in creating that feeling of soft, warm nostalgia, loud, and passionate as he’s strumming his strings with …
Although Onrushing Cloud is the first recording by this trio, Andrea Belfi (drums, percussion, electronics), David Grubbs (electric guitar, voice, piano) and Stefano Pilia (electric guitar) share a common bond in that they’ve all released solo works via the Swedish label, Hapna. On this album Grubbs and Pilia combine instrumental forces while Belfi sets out a backdrop of highly sensitive percussion and electronics. The outcome is a single, half-hour, flowing body of work thatâÂÂ…
september 2009 release ; excellent (if painfully brief ; could really use an lp-length recording of this stuff !!!) single of ghostly guitar passages (recorded in harlem, usa, no less) from italian artist stefano pilia ...two mazzacane-connors-esque figures, drenched in amp-buzz (incidentally, the only way we could solve the ages-old 33/45 dilemma was to run the 60-cycle ground-hum through a frequency counter) ; impeccably channeled & gorgeously presented ... highly recommended !!! (MIMAROGLU)
Already out of print, last copies available "Recorded between Bologna and Providence, Last days is just Pilia and his nude guitar. Five new pieces that will bring you up to the sky in a climax of infinite grace and beauty. If you followed his previous works, you already know that Stefano is a rare voice, within his fingers, improvisation and composition meet each other in perfect harmony. This new LP offers some of the most emotionally intense guitar music we have listened to, to date. Last Days…
A very nice compilation distributed worldwide by Wire and produced by Xing. Fragments of Phonorama were recorded live at Raum, Bologna, in 2006-07 from two collective performances conceived by Riccardo Benassi for Xing. The original recordings were re-shaped and re-composed in Berlin by Valerio Tricoli and Riccardo Benassi. Phonorama is a live electronics happening generated from improvisations by 20 musicians to create a collective soundtrack. One long environmental suite involving some of the …
** LAST COPIES** This solo work by the 3/4hadbeeneliminated guitarist Stefano Pilia can aptly be defined “ecstatic”, in the purest sense of the term. Each guitar note seems to emanate from beneath an invisible surface, lingering for a few moments only to drop back down and be replaced by another; different harmonics emerge creating a restless resonance, and tiny clusters of melody appear and disappear before fading in the haze of a gorgeous drone. Stefano Pilia (1978) lives and works in Bologna.…