papernoise blackbook

No this is not Rome, this is somewhere near Bolzano at 2500m height. The day before we started our trip to Rome, we went up the mountain with the guys from helios, ate a lot of knödels (yummy, good knödels!) walked back, long after dark, got lost in the dark… but this is another story.
The day after we were in Rome!

We saw a book presentation by Luca Russo and Christiano Silvi, but I don’t have a picture of the authors so I’ll post one of the two musicians playing at the presentation.

The day after I was at Odio L’estate, held a little speech about Giètz! and had the pleasure to meet Alessandra Umiliani (daughter of Piero Umiliani, one of the musicians appearing in the book) and Francesco Argento, who manages the official Umiliani website.

A tourist’s round to see some churches and roman ruins, several glasses of wine, a trip to the Tunué headquarters, a Sunday at the lake playing games and watching buffalos ruminate and we were back on out way home!
It’s been an intense but beautiful weekend.

UPDATE: since I wrote this article I’ve produced a whole EP using (among other synths) the Shruthi-1, you can find it here (comes as a free download) its-the-end-ep-free-download

On the 14th of April I received a small parcel with a couple of pcbs, some ICs, resistors, capacitors and all the other stuff you need to build an electronic device. It was my Shruti-1 kit, and I had been among the very (very!) few lucky people to get one!

Before I had gotten the kit I had already started to sketch out some ideas on how to build a case for it. The kit was only containing the electronic parts needed to get it going, the case was up to the builder. This is actually a great thing, because people have come up with very interesting and creative cases for this little musical beast (check this site here to see some of them).

Anyway once built the synth would look like this, not really something you could carry to a gig…

for a long time I have been clinging to my initial design, which btw. was somehow inspired by the Tivoli Model One radio  (whose minimalist retro design I love so much). I asked a friend of mine, who is a carpenter by trade, to help me to build that case, and I decided to have the faceplate and the backplate (with the connections) laser-cut by Ponoko.com.

Sometimes I have time to work on things like this, sometimes, I’m too swaped with work to do anything else, so it took me some time to come up with a working design. I sent all the data to Ponoko and waited for them to send me the stuff back. I waited for several weeks, because UPS lost my parcel somewhere on the way, and it took them 2 weeks to decide that it was lost and Ponoko (or better their Italian partner Vectorealism) had them lasered again.

In the meantime I went to the sea, got swamped by work again, my friend was swamped with work as well and then he went to the sea… and the Shruti-1 was still there on my desk catching dust and risking to break for good. In fact it even fell to the floor one time, and the LCD pcb got loose so that I had to solder it again.

In the end I couldn’t stand the situation anymore and just created a new, Ponoko-only design. Sent the cutting data over and got the cut pieces pretty fast (today). Sat down, sticked everything together and now finally the long story is over, and my Shruti-1 has finally found a decent shell!

The building process was not really painless though, I have made several mistakes, forgot some holes, made some others too small, miscalculated some factors. All in all I’d say I’m happy with the result though! Now what new device could I build?

Here’s some pictures of the making process and the finished piece!
(photos are courtesy by Sbrizz, who I would like to thank for the help and support!)

Two tracks I’ve made to try out some new gear/software: Nanoloop for the iPhone and the amazing Shruti-1

Usually I don’t happy by rumpelfilter

shruti test 01 messy version by rumpelfilter

Lapin

I’ve spent 3 years working on a graphic novel about jazz music, and this made me discover and appreciate many musicians I didn’t know (or didn’t know well) before. Still I can’t say that I’m a Jazz addict, even while drawing Gietz!, most of the time I would listen to completely different music, like The Cure or some chiptunes. At one point I felt the need to find some flavour of contemporary Jazz that was somehow more in line with my taste. I dicovered a whole new world!

There’s this current in Jazz which is called Dark Jazz, or Doom Jazz which is a mix of dark athmospheres, weird soundscapes and e-piano. There’s two great bands I would recomend: Bohren and the Club of Gore and The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble. Check out the videos below:

Another great band I would recommend is Movits! Those Swedish guys created the perfect mix between Django Reinhard, Swing and Hip Hop. I’ve been listening to this a lot while drawing Gietz! It perfectly fitted with the mood of the comic, and was energetic enough to fuel my motivation!

I’ve recently created this little illustration, which I would call “A surreal view of my studio desk” for a blog called disquiet. It’s a very interesting an well written blog, especially if you’re into music and field recording, so go check it out here: disquiet.com

more about the illustration here: disquiet.com

As I told you before, more music related works are coiming! This is another chiptune EP cover I’ve recently done, for a guy called Futurnari. The album (which you can freely download here: www.beepcity.com) is clearly inspired by the game soundtracks of past times, but adds some nice variations to it. Be sure to check it out. The cover takes the 4 elements contained in the titles of the tracks (mushrooms, fire, bricks and toadstools) and combines them in one picture. The idea was to convey the spirit of the tracks, and suggest a somehow gamey athmosphere.

And now for something completely different… it’s saturday, and I haven’t been posting sketches in a while, so here is one that somehow goes well with the above illustration (though, there no kind of relation between the two).

La news non è nuovissima… ma sempre tardi che mai. A proposito della questione iPad, fumetti, libri, gente che legge e che non legge ne avrei un bel po’ da dire, ma sarà per un altra volta, intanto eccovi la news così com’è, senza commento (via tunue.com):

Il numero dei graphic novel che la Tunué sta convertendo in app per iPad diventa sempre più alto, e così anche Giètz! ora può essere scaricato da iTunes App Store a soli 0,79 cent.

Ambientato a La Spezia negli anni della liberazione americana, è una storia di passione, per la musica e la vita: Nico, il protagonista, è un giovane che ama suonare la tromba e a contatto con i soldati americani e afroamericani scoprirà sonorità nuove e realizzerà così il sogno di diventare a tutti gli effetti un vero trombettista, un trombettista giètz.

Un graphic novel completamente incentrato sulla musica e sull’unione che ha provocato in anni di paura e divisione trapersone diverse; una storia avvincente che potrebbe essere, come dice Paolo Fresu, curatore della prefazione “la storia di uno dei tanti trombettisti jazz”.

Per scaricare l’app: 
Giètz!

I recently found this anthology named Pirat in my mailbox. It’s a project by Polish comic artist Mikolaj Spionek, who ask me for a contrubution some time ago. It’s really fun to see one’s creations translated into a foreign language…