Nobody's Husband, Nobody's Dad

The album Nobody's Husband, Nobody's Dad is the first entirely solo work of UK-based percussionist Maurizio Ravalico, and it represents a nodal episode in his artistic development. The music on the album is entirely acoustic and live played, with no overdubs added to the initial takes. These have all been slightly edited to different degrees, mainly to fit them into the time limitations of vinyl; but other than that all tracks are faithful reproductions of single, acoustic, uninterrupted one-man performances.

Another distinctive musical trait of the album is a presistent denial of metric recurrence. Maurizio's solo music is focusing on sounds, often generated by unexpected combinations of conventional instruments and found objects, both played using a mix of orthodox and extended techniques, and often on top of a big drum, which augments dramatically their timbrical and tonal range. The finished pieces recall thus the aesthetics of both contemporary and improvised music, despite them being neither strictly composed nor at all improvised.

Companion to the album is A Momentary Convergence of Differently Paced Trajectories, a 12" EP containing remixes of one of Maurizio's album tracks, Fiium Shaarrk and Collocutor.

"One of the finest avant-garde percussionists in the world. Maurizio Ravalico is incredible to watch and hear. Catch him live somewhere soon!"

Jean-Claude Thompson, IfMusic.co.uk

"Creative, deep and intriguing. Percussion avantgarde at its best."

Vince Vella, Dj, producer, Havana Cultura

MAURIZIO RAVALICO

Italian-born visionary cross-genres percussionist Maurizio Ravalico has been one notably eclectic presence in the London music scene since his arrival in the UK, in 1991.

Regularily seen on stage and on releases with the like of Jamiroquai and the James Taylor Quartet throughout the nineties, as well as with virtually every salsa and Cuban-oriented projects to originate from London in the same period, he has subsequently collaborated on many of the projects of the experimental music label Not applicable (Icarus, Isambard Khroustaliov, Alex Bonney, Tom Arthurs) since 2005, and is now an established name in both the London and Berlin improv and experimental scene, having played with John Edwards, Oren Marshall, Steve Beresford, Pat Thomas, Frank Paul Schubert and many others.

Maurizio Ravalico's peculiar approach to percussion is one of the distinctive traits of Tamar Osborn's modal jazz 5-piece band Collocutor (On the Corner records) and of the pan-European trio Fiium Shaarrk (on BBC3 Late Junction's 12 Best Albums of 2017). Maurizio Ravalico also collaborates with the string quartet Phaedra Ensemble, the composer Fred Thomas and the French contemporary dance company Silenda.

CREDITS

Maurizio Ravalico - solo percussion

Recorded on July 16th, 17th and 18th 2017 at Area51 Studio, Trieste

Produced by Maurizio Ravalico

Engineered and co-produced by Moreno Buttinar

Mixed by Alex Bonney

Mastered by Bob Macciochi at S.C. Mastering

Vinyl cut by Caspar Sutton-Jones at Gearbox

Graphic layout by Giò Piras

All photos by Alessandro "Benni" Parlante

All compositions by Maurizio Ravalico

© Maurizio Ravalico 2018, all rights reserved

There are no overdubs and no electronic manipulations on this album; only a discreet amount of editing, to what are otherwise single, acoustic, uninterrupted one-man performances.

Thanks are due to:

Moreno Buttinar, for for his time, friendship, generosity and formidable devotion to music;

Kishon Khan and Justin Thurghur, for their invaluable input into the completion of this release;

Axel Drioli, for providing the initial kick for this work.

Mum and Dad, for loving me all along, no matter what.

The music on this album, and in general my solo music, would certainly be different if I had never been exposed to the playing of Le Quan Ninh, who opened my mind to a completely new approach to percussion, fourteen years ago. A big debt of gratitude goes to his ideas and his examples, which were the starting point of many hundreds of hours of joyful explorations.

This album is dedicated to Fifi, and her fantastic journey through life, at the end of which we all discovered ourselves better human beings.

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On the inner sleeve of the physical album, a poem by Claudio Grisancich is reproduced, by kind permission from the author.

Done che in-t-ela carne

me gavè fato tài,

done, go 'ncora posto

pa' i vostri pugnai.

Claudio Grisancich, 1972