maurizio abate: loneliness, desire & revenge

This acoustic guitar album is a big change for experimental musician Maurizio Abate. After many years of psychedelic albums combining improvisation with a creative recording process, he composed Loneliness, Desire and Revenge based on a more traditional method -- solo acoustic guitar. In the winter of 2014 he organized a series of Italian screenings of James Cullingham's 2013 documentary In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey, giving occasional solo guitar performances before screenings, and that occasion encouraged him to experience the guitar solo language. After playing these compositions at live shows, Maurizio decided to record the tracks in an almost definitive way, though the live interpretation of the songs is always mutating. He recorded alone in his house between Christmas 2014 and New Year's Day 2015 on a reel-to-reel tape recorder, performing acoustic guitar and, in a couple of songs, electric guitar and harmonica. Loneliness, Desire and Revenge is an intimate and confidential album, evoking the musician's moods and emotions, and a document of Abate's transition from improvisational electric sound to instrumental songwriting for acoustic fingerstyle guitar. Maurizio Abate is a self-taught guitarist active since the early 2000s with an instinctive approach to experimentation. Always looking for new forms of expression, he is committed to shaping the blues, folk, and psychedelic tradition in a personal and unique way. Driven by a strong fascination for stringed instruments, he has been involved in many recording sessions since 2006, releasing several LPs under his name or with other groups, and he has toured extensively in Italy and across Europe. Abate started performing live in 2006, playing electric guitar in styles ranging from free-from to noise and ambient. After various collaborations with improv-psychedelic ensembles (Eternal Zio, Neokarma Jooklo, Golden Cup, Rella the Woodcutter, BeMyDelay), he has developed a live performance based on a processed hurdy-gurdy, harmonica, and electronics through which he creates meditative, ritual desert soundscapes. Collaborations since then include the 2016 album Superficie with Alberto Boccardi and the 2015 album La pelle del fantasma with Giovanni Donadini (Canedicoda, Ottaven) as Arbre du Ténéré.