Riccardo La Foresta is a percussionist and sound artist from Modena (Italy) whose research over the last few years aims to question the role of the drum as a percussive instrument. Resonances and vibrations generated treating the drum as an aerophone, create acoustic drones, ancestral melodies, and complex beats that drastically distance the instrument from traditional drumming. The ongoing process of his research is focused on the development of a system called Drummophone. His sound performance is a hybrid act in between the fields of sound art, improvisation, acousmatic music and drone music.
FACTS:
1: The best nap is the train nap.
2: I got burned in Ireland.
3: I turned down a big pop TV gig once. I’d do it again.
QUESTIONS:
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
That electricity and the curiosity looping into my head while making music. The process itself, it’s probably a chemical thing.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
When I was 18.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time?
I get tired of things. I hope I haven’t heard yet my 5 albums of all time.
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Music community, great summers.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
My studio CA.OS – when we organize parties, the vibe is great and I get to see the people that I love having fun at my place.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
I’d get bored in such a boring world.
7. What was the last record/music you bought?
Two LPs together:
Max Nauhaus, ‘Electronique et percussion’ (Cage, Bussotti, Brown, Stockhausen, Feldman)
& Okkyung Lee, ‘Yeo-Neun’.
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
I’d love to collaborate with someone that doesn’t speak English or Italian or any other common language that we could share.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
I believe my best gig as a performer for conditions, music outcome, friendship, was in 2019 at Sacrum Profanum, Krakow, with Anthony Pateras Pseudacusis.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
It’s 50% of the work even if I work with acoustic sources and instruments.
11. Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career/art?
I have a brother and a sister, they are not musicians. Brotherhood to me means unconditioned love, support and fight. We have the three, but I don’t know what they(actually) feel about what I do.
