Guiliano Cardella: Photo by Jennifer K. Hugus for The Los Angeles Beat
It is a warm but cool, breezy, but still pre-Christmas, non-holiday evening as I saunter by Counterpoint Records and Books (5911 Franklin Ave). Catching my eye through the window: a cinematic screen alive with effervescent artistry and a guitar flanked by a guy in all his glory playing with gobs and gobs of gusto under the guise of Guiliano Cardella. Art magicially materializes miraculously and masterfully behind said musician! His steadfast strummer’s stance silhouetted by a sea of story books; no one the least bit bookish or librarian berates him. His meticulous mate in markestry—Marco Bragaglia–a most singular and stunning sketch artist! It is as though every note plucked determines the length, swoop and contour of each and every impending line. I must find out more.
Touring from Italy, both have teamed up to create a musical multimedia extravaganza combining the most wailing of solo guitar solos with “live digital painting” as Bragaglia has termed his real-time master creations.
Photos after the jump
Upon entering, Cardella’s stringed notes and syncopations stroke my soul and trailed lines tickle my gaze as Bragaglia, in all his esoterically astute vision enables our appreciation of all-seeing-eyeballs and piques perception of possible and periodic pyramids in an illustrative style all too reminiscent of Picasso and patchy painting suggestive of Joan Miro. This “live digital painting” in all its real-time mastery is haunting, odd and wonderful in the most mesmerizing of senses.
Invariably, I will inform Cardella his style reminds me distinctly of Roger Waters to which he will reply, “Grazie Senora” followed by a genteel kiss on the hand and a somewhat awkward reaction from yours truly as I am all too accustomed to men of my heritage simply giving a perfunctory upward nod whilst mumbling a half-hearted, “Yeah cool, thanks.” To Bragaglia, I will remark upon how calculatedly organic his paintings are at which point will he bestow upon me a roughly 8” by 8” canvas he has conveyed to the performance and heretofore, put on display as a “gift” along with a most excellent hug!
More than many a passerby are arrested by the exhibition and the bookstore soon adopts a feel of the most hallowed of concert halls as Cardella, with his sole instrument and single amp transforms the establishment into a near-proverbial Pink Floyd performance. From his Roger Watersish rifs to his bluesy bar progressions Counterpoint is rendered more righteously groovy than ever!
http://www.counterpointla.com/
