Belfi / Grubbs / Pilia - Dust & Mirrors (2014)

"‘Dust & Mirrors’ is the second full-length album by the trio of Andrea Belfi (drums, percussion, electronics), David Grubbs (electric guitar, piano, voice), and Stefano Pilia (electric guitar). It follows 2010’s ‘Onrushing Cloud’ LP and finds the trio confidently taking stabs in a number of opposed directions. It dramatically widens the terrain in which the group operates. Between albums, the three musicians worked together on David Grubbs’s 2013 album ‘The Plain Where The Palace Stood’, and took part in Grubbs’ and visual artist Angela Bulloch’s performance piece ‘The Wired Salutation’, which spins out variations on ‘Charm Offensive’, the fourteen minute opening gambit on ‘Dust & Mirrors’. (‘The Wired Salutation’ features unnerving 3D avatars of Belfi / Grubbs / Pilia and Bulloch, and has been presented at the theatre at the Pompidou Center and Berlin’s Tanz im August festival.) From the epic, multi-part sprawl of ‘Charm Offensive’ to Stefano Pilia’s distantly Robbie Basho-esque ‘The Distance, Cut,’ and from the mechanized riffing of ‘The Headlock’ to the wild improvisation ‘Ambassador Extraordinaire’, ‘Dust & Mirrors’ sees this group exploding outwards from their more steely, contemplative beginnings. Berlin-based Andrea Belfi is a drummer, electroacoustic musician, and composer. Recent collaborations include Hobocombo, The Swifter, Evangelista (with Carla Bozulich), and Il Sogno del Marinaio (with Mike Watt and Stefano Pilia). Brooklyn-based David Grubbs recently released the solo guitar 10” EP ‘Borough Of Broken Umbrellas’, is the author of the book ‘Records Ruin The Landscape: John Cage, The Sixties, And Sound Recording’ (Duke University Press), and has played in Gastr del Sol, Bastro, and a whole bunch of other groups. Bologna-based Stefano Pilia is known for his solo recordings and his participation in the group 3/4 Had Been Eliminated. More recently he’s been active playing with Rokia Traore, In Zaire, and Il Sogno del Marinaio."