Hardformat

I want to recover and give back a little bit of that lost intelligence and bravery, by taking inspiration (apart from the music itself) from the ideas of the Italian artists and the designers who produced some of the most impressive work of the last century: clearly De Chirico (the Magic Architecture series for the new composers’ series – and yes, Borges too, in the sense of being stranded in some arcane landscape, feeling a sense of nostalgia for some lost myth); but also the Italian “informal” art of the fifties (MAC, Capogrossi, Burri) for the Zeit series.

Magic Architecture is how I call my design project for this series. These composers are creating completely new sonic worlds, opening up new horizons. I just wanted to reflect this approach, and give the music a wider scenario to live in (each cover is specifically designed for the music on each CD).

The design approach also creates a common ground for these publications, and that is a reflection on the way we choose the music: we want to create an original and coherent vision both musically and visually.

Stucchi has also kindly furnished Hard Format with some of his preliminary sketches: