Alessandro Stefana (“Asso”), the Italian composer, musician, and producer who has contributed to album’s by PJ Harvey, Mike Patton, and Calexico, amongst others, releases his sophomore self-titled solo album on May 17th, 2024, via Ipecac Recordings.
Listen to the new song “The House” below.
Throughout the album, Asso performs an eclectic array of instruments (ukelin, Marxophone, organ, pedal steel and baritone guitars, and more) and in varying genres, borrowing from rootsy folk and primitive blues to soundtracks, psychedelia, desert ballads and ambient explorations. Asso merges the past and present courtesy of the Smithsonian Folkways archives, adding Appalachian folk icon Roscoe Holcomb’s vocals to freshly re-imagined versions of the revered singer/banjo player’s songs.
“It is a powerful and moving testimony to a bygone era”, Asso says of his addition of Holcomb’s vocals. “I have always been fascinated by the idea of mixing folk, a music so intimately linked to the land, with something that goes beyond the boundaries of the genre”.
Asso’s debut solo release, “Poste e Telegrafi” (2013), was dubbed “one of the most striking works you’ll hear from a young composer all year” by Pitchfork, and AllMusic who deemed it “an impressive debut”.
Pre-order & pre-save the album here.
Tracklist:
1. Fading Away
2. Farewell To Dust
3. Out of the Blue
4. The Wandering Minstrel
5. The House
6. Born and Raised in Covington *
7. I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow *
8. Moonshiner *
9. Continental Spazio
* (w/ Roscoe Holcomb vocals)
Weblinks:
www.facebook.com/assostefana
www.instagram.com/alessandro_asso_stefana
