Trophies

Trophies:
Alessandro Bosetti - voice, electronics, text-sound composition
Kenta Nagai - fretless guitar, shamisen
Tony Buck - drums

Composer and sound artist Alessandro Bosetti is joined by Kenta Nagai, and Tony Buck for TROPHIES.
Focusing on mantra loops of spoken/sung abstract and highly emotional poetry Bosetti has created a powerful trance band where voice and electronic sound melt with the hallucinatory fretless e-guitar playing of Kenta Nagai (Miya Masaoka, Eugene Chadbourne), and the patiently groovy and virtuoso pulses of Tony Buck (The Necks). Throphies uses lenghty, repetitive and higlhy dinamic text-sound forms in a totally unique and genre defying way. Central to the music of trophies is the voice or a multitude of voices. A type of voices bordering song and speech but not embracing either one of those practices completely.
Spoken/sung phrases are repeated over and over by three vocalists and embedded in a musical texture created by drums, fretless guitar and electronics. Looped phrases in Trophies disappear from the listener's perception after a while. They become hidden in plain sight and vanish altogether after repeated listening.

Alessandro Bosetti is a sound artist, composer and performer currently based in Berlin. He's main focus is in the fringe area between spoken language and music. He created a series of highly compelling works where relational aesthetics meets innovative composition. Since 2001 he has been engaged in major radio art productions with almost all national radios in Europe, and created a vast body of work of hybrid, award winning, text-sound and radio compositions . Among them, pieces like Il Fiore della Bocca (Rossbin/DLR 2005), a work on the vocality of the mentally and physically impaired and African Feedback, a collaborative scrutiny on experimental music in West Africa (Errant Bodies press, 2004) are considered classic contributions to the genre. Field research and interviews often build the basis for his abstract compositions along with electro-acoustic and acoustic collages, relational strategies, trained and untrained instrumental practices, vocal explorations and digital manipulations. Alessandro Bosetti is an emotional performer that has consistently toured in Europe, Asia and the United States. He's been presenting solo sets for voice and electronics blurring the line between categories such as electro acoustic composition, text-sound pieces, song and performance. Most recently he’s been involved in exploring repetitive speech-loop forms as a solo artist and with his ensemble Trophies. Alessandro Bosetti’s website is www.melgun.net

Born in Sydney in 1962, Tony Buck is regarded as one of Australia's most creative and adventurous exports, with vast experience across the globe. He has been involved in a highly diverse array of projects. Apart from The Necks, he is probably best known as leader of hardcore/impro band PERIL. Early in his musical life, after having graduated from the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, he became very involved in the jazz scene in Australia, often touring with visiting international artists such as Vincent Herring, Clifford Jordan, Mickey Tucker, Branford Marsalis and Ernie Watts, as well as Australians Mark Simmonds, Paul Grabowsky, The catholics, Sandy Evans and Dale Barlow. Following time spent in Japan, where he formed PERIL with Otomo Yoshihide and Kato
Hideki, Tony moved to Europe, and has involved himself in many projects there, including the development of new "virtual" MIDI controllers at STEIM in Amsterdam. Tony has played, toured or recorded with, among others, Jon Rose, Nicolas Collins, Tenko, John Zorn, Tom Cora, Phil Minton, Haino, Switchbox, The Machine for Making Sense, Ne Zhdall, The EX, Peter Brotzmann, Hans Reichel, The Little Red Spiders, Subrito Roy Chowdury, Clifford Jordan, Kletka Red, Han Bennink, Shelley Hirsch, Wayne Horvitz, Palinckx, and Ground Zero.

Kenta Nagai is a sound and visual artist based in New York City. He works with acoustic and electronic sound, visual media and live performance. After completing undergraduate studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston (BA, 1996) Nagai moved to New York City. He began his NY career as a fretless guitarist playing on the streets, in subway stations and at clubs. His most recent compositional work, entitled Long, Long, Long, is an ensemble piece for
traditional Asian instruments. It was presented at Roulette, in NYC, in October 2006. Nagai's fretless guitar playing is featured on Eugene Chadborne's album "Guitar Festival Summer 1999" with Sonic Youth members Thurston Moore, Lee Renaldo and Jim O'Rourke plus Joe Morris, Lauren Mazzacane Connors, David Watson and others. Nagai is also a featured performer on two recordings by the composer Laura Andel, "Somnambulist" (Red Toucan Records, May 2003, RT9322) and "In::tension:" (Rossbin Records, October 2005, RS022). As a performer on the shamisen, a traditional Japanese string instrument, Nagai has appeared in
numerous concerts at venues including Sculpture Center in Long Island City and Carnegie Hall. From 1999 until 2002 Nagai was a composer in residence at The Cave Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.