Cagliari artist Tobia Poltronieri releases masterful, 15-year sonic meditation, guitar soundscape developed through journeys and gigs around Europe
Tobia Poltronieri is a guitarist, singer, and producer based in Cagliari who for over twenty years has combined experimentation and improvisational practice with the song form, playing constantly with the C+C=Maxigross collective—which he co-founded—and collaborating with artists such as the late Miles Cooper Seaton (Akron/Family), Lino Capra Vaccina (on his debut solo album Casa, finalmente), Gabriele Mitelli, Marco Giudici & Adele Altro (Any Other), Alessandro Cau, and Marco Fasolo (Jennifer Gentle).
He has released around ten albums and performed hundreds of concerts on international stages, including Primavera Sound in Barcelona (with C+C in 2016, as the first Italian band in the official lineup), live sessions recorded by the BBC (2017) with the Miles Cooper Seaton Trio, performances at Cafe Oto in London (2016, led by Seaton alongside Oliver Coates and Lætitia Sadier), and sessions with the Abstracta Collettive conducted by Eric Chenaux (2024, still unreleased).
His latest release La Voce della Padrona is a fifteen-year sonic meditation, developed through journeys and gigs around Europe.
His latest release La Voce della Padrona is a fifteen-year sonic meditation, developed through journeys and gigs around Europe.
'I gathered dozens of sound fragments, recorded on tape dictaphones, four-track cassette recorders and digital devices. These non-moments could happen between live shows, before sleep, or just after waking: impressions of that half-sleep state in which the conscious mind wanders lightly, free to create without superstructure.
Hundreds of these “stolen” fragments were born simply to dwell in my sound trays. Yet I kept reopening and listening to them, again and again: like memories of past lives, recalling moments I barely remembered and the places in which they had been caught in time. A sound journal of the unconscious. A map for fading memories.
Eventually, those lost memories called to me strongly enough that I felt it was time to release them. I began selecting and combining the fragments into a liminal path wandering between the Lessini Prealps, Gallura and southern Sardinia, Café OTO in London, Labirinto della Masone, and, of course, the Veronetta neighbourhood, where I lived and composed for many years.
These jams are not exclusively solo experiences. Musicians and dear friends—Miles Cooper Seaton, Alessandro Cau, Luigi Pinarel and Zeno Merlini—were invited to interact with my earlier pieces.
One of the last fragments caught in time is the one with which the album ends, recorded on a Yamaha DX7 synthesiser I had just bought from a neighbour. Its selected preset was “Ladyvox”. That synth track reminded me that, despite the instrumental nature of the record, a distant, lulling voice had silently guided me over the years.
The double-exposure photograph on the front cover contains a portrait from almost two hundred years ago, which has stared at me from my grandmother’s home since childhood. ' Tobia Poltronieri
Hundreds of these “stolen” fragments were born simply to dwell in my sound trays. Yet I kept reopening and listening to them, again and again: like memories of past lives, recalling moments I barely remembered and the places in which they had been caught in time. A sound journal of the unconscious. A map for fading memories.
Eventually, those lost memories called to me strongly enough that I felt it was time to release them. I began selecting and combining the fragments into a liminal path wandering between the Lessini Prealps, Gallura and southern Sardinia, Café OTO in London, Labirinto della Masone, and, of course, the Veronetta neighbourhood, where I lived and composed for many years.
These jams are not exclusively solo experiences. Musicians and dear friends—Miles Cooper Seaton, Alessandro Cau, Luigi Pinarel and Zeno Merlini—were invited to interact with my earlier pieces.
One of the last fragments caught in time is the one with which the album ends, recorded on a Yamaha DX7 synthesiser I had just bought from a neighbour. Its selected preset was “Ladyvox”. That synth track reminded me that, despite the instrumental nature of the record, a distant, lulling voice had silently guided me over the years.
The double-exposure photograph on the front cover contains a portrait from almost two hundred years ago, which has stared at me from my grandmother’s home since childhood. ' Tobia Poltronieri
Vinyl release now available through Torto Editions (Italy) and Ramble Records.
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