Futuro Antico -

Futuro Antico was an Italian ethno-electronic combo that self-released a 1980 album and recorded a second, released ten years late as Dai primitivi all’elettronica. Contemporary live material surfaced on the archival Isole del Suono.

Members: Walter Maioli (flute, ney, flute, whistle, rattles, bass harmonica, mouth bow, jew’s harp, double flute, jangro, vocals), Riccardo Sinigaglia (synthesizer, piano, organ, sound effects, bongos, Tibetan bells), Gabin Dabiré (tambourine, xylophone, tom-tom, whistle, güiro, lamellaphones, ektar, rain stick, bongos, congas, woodwinds, talking drum, rattles), Kala (tambura, 1980), Oiseau (percussion, 1980)

Background

Futuro Antico formed in Milan in 1980 when multi-instrumentalist Walter Maioli, fresh from a four-year Asian sojourn, teamed with electronic composer Riccardo Sinigaglia. They became a trio with Gabin Dabiré, a multi-instrumentalist from the central-west African nation of Burkina Faso.

Maioli was born in 1950 in Milan, where in 1972 he founded Aktuala, a communal ensemble centered on non-Western instruments and collective improvisation. From 1976 to 1979, he lived in the Himalaya and India, where he researched regional instruments, Sufi traditions, and Nepalese shamanic practices.

Sinigaglia was born in Arona in 1953 and moved with his family to Milan at age five, where he attended an art high school. He began piano lessons around age 12 and enrolled in electronic music at the Milan Conservatory under Angelo Paccagnini, then director of the RAI Studio di Fonologia. Through the 1970s, Sinigaglia appeared at Parco Lambro with an ensemble led by Roberto Cacciapaglia and collaborated with Jumbo. He also gave solo Moog concerts and participated in an electronic-improvisation group at the Conservatory alongside membership in Cooperativa L’Orchestra.

Dabiré was born in Bobo-Dioulasso, Upper Volta, where his father played guitar and harmonica. He took up drums at age 13 and formed the rock group Les Black Boys two years later. In 1975, Dabiré moved to Denmark for study and encountered European experimental and contemporary music. He appeared at the Parco Lambro festival in Milan with Piano Africa in 1976, then continued to India for extended study of Indian music and percussion. Maioli met Dabiré in Kathmandu in 1977 on the separate Asian travels of both musicians.

Sinigaglia already knew Maioli through the Via Ripamonti communal house in Milan, where musicians around Aktuala lived and improvised. Maioli returned from Asia in 1979 and resumed sessions with Sinigaglia, who combined synthesizers, keyboards, tape processing, and electronic effects with the ney and archaic instruments played by Maioli. The pair worked at the Milan home studio of Sinigaglia near Via Paolo Sarpi, an approximately 80-square-meter ground-floor room suited to collective improvisation.

Maioli applied the Futuro Antico name, a phrase he had used since the Aktuala period, to the new project and a composition registered with SIAE. Dabiré joined the circle once the project was underway, adding African and Asian percussion, lamellaphones, woodwinds, and other acoustic instruments. Maioli and Sinigaglia recorded the four extended pieces for the self-titled debut cassette at the Via Paolo Sarpi studio with analog electronics, ney, whistles, percussion, and other acoustic instruments.

Discography: