Walkman

Walkman is a section of this website where I share short audio fragments captured during my ongoing sound explorations and practices. These recordings are often intended for playback through a few portable tape recorders –typically a Sony TCM-459V or TCS-580V– used during my live performances.

I use these Walkmans to introduce fixed sounds that interact with and layer over ambient noises, blending with or amplifying the natural background, while I am producing acoustic sounds by using the percussive qualities of found objects encountered on-site. Though the presence of the walkman(s) is acoustically significant and strongly shapes the overall soundscape, the specific content of the pre-recorded tapes often remains faint or barely perceptible to the audience during live actions. Sensing this as a kind of lack –and wanting to give these tapes some sort of dignity– I’ve recently begun digitizing them. This is an attempt to preserve and highlight these raw, peripheral sounds that, though often overlooked, are central and recurring elements in my artistic practice.

Note: Most recordings were captured directly using the Sony TCM-459V or Sony TCS-580V portable tape recorders and/or a Nakamichi CR-2E tape-deck, with both looped and non-looped tapes. Some, however, were recorded using a Zoom F3 digital recorder paired with a stereo set of Neumann KM184s or DPA 4060s. These were sometimes roughly edited and later transferred to cassette.

walkman-FIELD-CUTs

Three short excerpts taken from a cassette I used for a sound action held in a rural area of Serbia, as part of the Polja Festival x SHAPE platform in June 2025. The recordings are rough and chaotic, consisting of a rehearsal I recorded directly to the walkman to prepare the performance along the riverside in Cesena, Italy.

LOOP - Thai gong

A loop taken from a pink cassette I used in a performance with dancer/choreographer Yasmine Hugonnet as part of Triennale Milano Festival in March 2025. The tape is quite old (it had a sticker dated 2017), and I presume that the main sound source was a small Thai gong that I can no longer find.

wooden chimes

This fragment was made by using four heavy rosewood sticks, hung on a metal chain and gently touched to allow them to oscillate and beat one another, creating strange rhythmic patterns. I made the tape using some cuts from an original recordings byAttila Faravelli on a Sony WM-D6C and used in the live soundtrack of the theater piece “Pinocchio” by Teatro Valdoca [2021].

cymbal

Two short improvisations on a 22-inch china cymbal and a skin instrument, aimed at creating rumblings, scratchings, and gloomy drones. Presumably recorded with a Sony WM-D6C, with variations in tape speed. Used only once in a live setting: each recording was played back on portable Walkmans scattered throughout the space while I improvised with the same acoustic instruments.

oscillazione di un albero

These excerpts were recorded together with Attila Faravelli, using the oscillations of a dead tree lying on the ground, near Rifugio Abetaia Ranuzzi Segni, in the Bolognese Apennines. We spent some time with it, simply enjoying the deep sounds that emerged from its crackling wooden frictions. The recordings were made in August 2024, while working on Ciglia, a project commissioned by MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna.

gong and field recording

A brief audio test created using an 18-inch gong and an audio transducer. It was recorded on tape with a Nakamichi CR-2E. The recording was intended to be played back on a portable Walkman while I repeated the same process that had produced the original recording, creating two layers of the same sonic material. I rehearsed this for a short while, but my interest in using the gong in a live context faded quite quickly.

isia [tape noise]

Two shorts excerpt taken live with a Sony TCM-459V to be re-played as a background noise during a collective performance realised at MicHub Pescara, together with Fabio Perletta and his class of students at ISIA Design Pescara.

tibetan bells

Two audio excerpt of a tape made for a walkman Sony TCM-465V within the frame of the project Tibetan Bells - del sorgere e del dissolversi.

The project proposes a sound experience/listening session inspired by meditative practices involving Tibetan singing bowls, but it diverges from these traditions to offer an artistic and materialistic interpretation of their sonic power. The bowls are not presented as healing instruments, but rather as sound objects capable of transforming the acoustic environment, generating both harmony and moments of tension and dissonance.
Through a textual introduction that invites mindful and independent listening, the audience is guided to perceive not only the calming dimension of the sound but also its vibrational complexity: unstable resonances and layered textures that encourage a focused observation of the body and the acoustic experience. Original recording of the bells and edit was made together with Giovanni Lami.

markhor

Three excerpts from a 2017 tape, roughly recorded on a Sony TCM-459V before a performance with dancemaker Cristina Rizzo at Cango – Cantieri Goldonetta in Florence. This encounter later developed into a series of performances titled Markhor, dedicated to improvisation between sound and movement and presented at various festivals across Italy.

legno e insetto

This is an audio track used for a live performance in Paris, at the invitation of INA GRM – Groupe de Recherches Musicales, in January 2026. The piece consists of an electroacoustic performance for percussion and objects, combined with fixed sounds diffused through the GRM Acousmonium. This excerpt features wooden and insect sounds.

meditazione senza oggetto

Three excerpts featuring drone-like sounds and noises produced by two cymbals, recorded using a Sony TCS-580V connected to a pair of Clippy EM272 stereo microphones. Cuts #1 and #2 were recorded on a short loop tape, whereas cut #3 is an excerpt from a longer recording made on a regular Sony UX-50 cassette. All recordings were made in an extremely reverberant room in Cesena (FC), with the sound sources -the cymbals- positioned at a considerable distance from the microphones. I use these sounds during part of a solo performance with cymbals, entitled Mediazione Senza Oggetto. After a long and extensive development of acoustic sounds, I introduce the walkmans to create a lo-fi, drone-like layer while I start to activate the surrounding space.