Massimo Pupillo has today premiered his new musical project titled ‘Songs Of Stone’ featuring Malcolm McDowell and Gabriele Tinti, releasing tomorrow via Bandcamp (digitally) and vinyl via Subsound Records.
More like an experience than music, aurally this is a satisfying and contemplative piece. Malcolm’s signature vocals over atmospheric music colliding with sheer genius and originality flare into your heart filtered through your mind.
Brilliantly constructed into two distinct pieces, we feel the energy through the marriage of words, wisdom and weathered music that tells a story interpreted by the listener and forever felt in your memories. This is what music is. It’s collaborative. It’s emotional. It’s resonating. It’s here.
About ‘Songs Of Stone’
“Songs Of Stone” is a musical project based on several epigrams, elegies and laments that Gabriele Tinti composed inspired by epigraphs from the ancient world. It arises from the wish to sustain the necessary link that joins us to the rituals of the past.
The inscription on durable material was one of the languages the ancients used to oppose the transience of oral expression, wishing to conserve their words in time. Tinti gathers these ideas to create verses he entrusts to the actor’s interpretation, thus combining the impression of the spoken word and the visual participation of the words in stone.
The readings are made by Malcolm McDowell, a star of numerous cult films including A Clockwork Orange, If… and Caligula. Tinti’s words and the actor’s vocal performance are put together by Massimo Pupillo in a work intended to transgress the confines between reality and ancient mythology.
Massimo has created an imaginary landscape, creating a visionary theatre for Gabriele Tinti ‘s words, a sound world born and based on the precise and eloquent vocal timbre of Malcolm McDowell Using a plethora of different sources, various synthesis, samples of eastern European choirs, processing McDowells’ voice, ‘Songs of Stone’ will bring the listener in a twilight zone between dreams and mythology, where remote past and future horizons meet.
About Massimo Pupillo
Massimo Pupillo is mostly known for being the founding member of Zu, with whom he has released 18 albums and played more than 2000 shows around the world. He has also kept a very open and multidisciplinary approach that led him to work with some of the most acclaimed figures in today’s world of arts: Romeo Castellucci, Chiara Guidi (of legendary avant garde theatre group Societas Raffaello Sanzio), American choreographer Meg Stuart, French opera star Marie-Agnes Gillot, contemporary dance group Dewey Dell, world renown dancer Yaman Okur, etc.
He has collaborated live and on record with avant-garde musicians and composers such as Alvin Curran (founder of Musica Elettronica Viva in 1966), with world-famous piano duo of Katia & Marielle Labeque, with classical music virtuosos such as Viktoria Mullova and Giovanni Sollima. In the world of rock music he has collaborated with some of the most important names of the international scene, such as Mike Patton (Faith No More), Thurston Moore, Jim O’ Rourke (Sonic Youth), Guy Picciotto & Joe Lally (Fugazi), Buzz Osbourne (Melvins), Damo Suzuki (CAN), etc.
In free-improvised music he worked with Peter Brotzmann, Toshinori Kondo, Tony Buck (The Necks/ Swans) etc.. In the experimental music scene he has collaborated with Oren Ambarchi, David Tibet (Current 93), Thighpaulsandra (Coil), FM Einheit (Einstürzende Neubauten), Stephen O’ Malley (Sunn O)))), Christina Vantzou, Daniel O’Sullivan, Andrea Belfi, Abul Mogard, Mick Harris (Scorn), Gordon Sharp (Cindytalk & This Mortal Coil), and many-many more. Between Zu, solo work and collaborations, Massimo released more than 80 albums and played 3000 shows all over the world.
About Gabriele Tinti
A recent recipient of the Montale Poetry Award, Gabriele Tinti is an Italian poet and writer. He has worked with the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Roman Museum, the Capitolini Museums, the Archeological Museum in Naples, the Ara Pacis Museums, the Colosseum and the Glyptothek of Munich, composing poems for ancient works of art, including The Boxer at Rest, the Discobolus, Arundel Head, the Ludovisi Gaul, the Victorious Youth, the Farnese Hercules, the Hercules by Scopas, the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, the Barberini Faun and many other masterpieces.
His poems have been recited by actors like Abel Ferrara, Marton Csokas, Kevin Spacey, Malcolm McDowell, Stephen Fry, Joe Mantegna, Michael Imperioli, Burt Young, Robert Davi, Jamie Mc. Shane, James Cosmo, Vincent Piazza, and Franco Nero. In 2016 he published Last Words (Skira Rizzoli) a collection of found poetry in association with Andres Serrano. In 2020 Tinti published The Earth Will come To Laugh and To Feast (Powerhouse Books, New York) a poetry collection with illustrations by the artist Roger Ballen.
In 2021 his Ruins was published by Libri Scheiwiller (Milan) and Eris Press (London). His poetry collection Bleedings- Incipit Tragoedia has been published by La Nave di Teseo (Milan, 2022) and will be published in an English edition by Contra Mundum Press (New York, 2023).
About Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell is an English actor, producer, and television presenter, best known for his boisterous, charismatic and villainous roles. He later trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before embarking on an acting career that has spanned over 50 years.
McDowell is principally known for his roles in the controversial films Caligula, If…, O Lucky Man! and A Clockwork Orange. His versatility as an actor has led to his presence in many films and television series of different genres, including Tank Girl, Star Trek Generations, the TV serial Our Friends in the North, Entourage, Heroes, Metalocalypse, animated film Bolt and the 2007 remake of Halloween and the 2009 sequel Halloween II. He is also well known for his narration of the seminal 1982 documentary, The Complete Beatles.
LINKS:
https://subsoundrecords.bigcartel.com/product/mcdowell-pupillo-tinti-songs-of-stone-limited-edition-black-lp
https://massimopupilloofficial.bandcamp.com/
https://www.zuism.net/massimo/
https://www.facebook.com/massimozu
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Pupillo_(musicista)
https://www.instagram.com/massimofarjonpupillo/