Email: studio@paolocalabrese.com
BIOGRAPHY
Paolo Calabrese (b. 1998, Bari) is a composer and performer who has developed a personal sonic language rooted in alternative tunings, psychoacoustic investigation, microtonal systems, and compositional structures driven by reductionist constraints to trigger intuition. Working across acoustic instrumentation, synthesis, reductionist and chance methods, and auditory scene analysis, Calabrese explores sound as a precise field of inquiry, one capable of revealing states of suspension and altered perceptual intensity.
Calabrese’s discographic work traces the evolution of this research. Early releases with the duo ØHØI (2019–2021) on Subsist Records, Exp Records, Hxagrm Records and Corpus Black mark the origins of his trajectory, where techno-derived pulse and iterative pattern-building laid the groundwork for later, more distilled forms. A decisive turn occurred in 2022 through a series of acousmatic works, including the harmonised concretism of no.5 (Discreet Archive, 2025) and the pieces comprising 678 (Here Free Press, 2022)—which signalled a pivotal shift toward the use of analogue oscillators and guitar alongside fixed electronics. This acousmatic line reached its maturity with 610 (Adventurous Music, 2023), establishing his focus on sustained-tone architectures and long-form processes. With no.14 (Adventurous Music, 2023), Calabrese transitioned from fixed recorded processes to live modular synthesis, integrating real-time system performance into his practice. With no.16 (asonu., 2024), he further refined his approach to beating binaural patterns and spectral sparsity. His collaborative projects: ± with Manuel Carbone (Minimal Resource Manipulation, 2024), a dense acousmatic study in binaural synthesis, granular textures, and phonographic traces, and st2m with Menou (A Silent Place, 2024), another acousmatic work built on intertwined modular synth stems.
Beyond publications, Calabrese's work has been presented in contexts such as Castello Caracciolo (Sammichele) and Ex Caserma (Bari), and his works have appeared on platforms including Vital Weekly, CiTR Vancouver, Igloo Magazine, The Institute of Spectra-Sonic Sound, and various radio programs.
Educated in New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bari and trained as a sound technician in Milan, Calabrese unites technical precision with conceptual studies. His artistic practice is guided by a radical reductionism, expressed in his own words as the search for direct and immediate access to an elemental sonic alphabet stripped of associative excess.
Now based between Stockholm and the suburban areas of Bari.
DISCOGRAPHY
no.16 – CD / DL | asonu. | April 2024
no.14 – DL | Adventurous Music | May 2023
610 – DL, set | Adventurous Music | February 2023
no.5 – DL | Discreet Archive | October 2025
± – CD / DL, collaboration with Manuel Carbone | Minimal Resource Manipulation | November 2024
st2m – CS / DL, collaboration with Menou | A Silent Place | November 2024
678 – CD / DL, set | Here Free Press | November 2022
no.5 – Cities and Memory | 2022
Blind – DL, ØHØI duo | Exp Records | July 2021
Shuar’s Shaman – DL, ØHØI duo | Hxagrm Records | November 2020
Peak – DL, ØHØI duo | Corpus Black | July 2020
Ascent – DL, ØHØI duo | Exp Records | November 2019
Element’s Decline – DL, ØHØI duo | Hxagrm Records | October 2019
A night in the forest Remix – DL, ØHØI duo | EXP Records | September 2019
Dcrypt – DL, ØHØI duo | Exp Records | May 2019
LIST OF WORKS
CHAMBER AND LARGE ENSEMBLE
- No.20 (2025-26) composition for violin, cello, sine and sawtooth tones variable length
- No.22 (2025-26) composition for pipe organ variable length
- No.21 (2025-26) composition for pipe organ variable length
- No.19 (2025-26) composition for pipe organ variable length
- No.18 (2025-26) composition for pipe organ variable length
- no.16 (2023) composition for electronics variable length
- no.15 (2023) acousmatic composition for sine tones and processed phonography 1’
- no.14 (2023) composition for sine and triangle tones variable length
- no.12 (2022) acousmatic composition for amplified classical guitar, feedback, and electronics 10’
- no.10 (2022) acousmatic composition for sine tones and electric organ 22’
- no.8 (2022) acousmatic composition for amplified classical guitar, feedback, and fixed electronics variable length
- no.7 (2022) acousmatic composition for sine tones variable length
- no.6 (2022) acousmatic composition for sine tones 14’
- no.5 (2022) acousmatic composition for processed fan and air conditioner 19’
- no.4 (2022) acousmatic composition for sine tones and phonography 10’
- no.2 (2022) composition for silence 10’
- no.1 (2021) acousmatic composition for amplified objects and sine tones 22’
- no.17 (2024) ready-made
- no.13 (2023) photographies
- no.11 (2022) augmented reality installation
- no.9 (2022) objects and sound installation
- no.3 (2022) objects and sound installation
PRESS/APPAREANCES
- ‘no.14’ featured on Anakronism 24 by Adventurous Music, 2025
- ‘±’ featured on éist - Phil Maguire’s program seomra folamh, 2025
- ‘±’ review on EX! Zine edition 2, 2025
- ‘±’ selected as Signalstoerung favorite 2024 Album, 2024
- ‘no.6’ featured on Adventspäng, 2024
- ‘±’ featured on Vital Weekly Podcast 1465, 2024
- ‘±’ review on Vital Weekly, 2024
- ‘+’ featured on Dark Train program on WCR, 2024
- ‘st2m’ review on Igloo Magazine, 2024
- ‘no.16’ featured on The Institute of Spectra-Sonic Sound, 2024
- ‘no.16’ featured on Vital Weekly Podcast 1443, 2024
- ‘no.16’ review on Vital Weekly, 2024
- ‘no.14’ featured on RUIDO2023E30: «Toda la Música, Simultáneamente», 2024
- ‘no.6’ featured on Excerpts from the AM catalog, 2023
- 'AXIA' press release on Accademia di Belle Arti di Bari, 2023
- 'AXIA' press release on Exibart, 2023
- 'AXIA' press release on BariToday, 2023
- ‘no.14’ featured on From The Archives Vol. 5 - Adventurous Music, 2023
- ‘no.14’ featured on CiTR Vancouver - Bepi Crespan present program, 2023
- ‘no.3’ featured on Addition Magazine, 2023
- ‘no.6’ featured on From The Archives Vol. 4 - Adventurous Music, 2023
- ‘no.10’ featured on CiTR Vancouver - Bepi Crespan present program, 2023
- ‘no.6’ featured on The Parish News #335, 2023
- ‘no.6’ featured on CiTR Vancouver - Bepi Crespan present program, 2023
- ‘Elements' Decline’ by ØHØI review on Clubbing Spain, 2019
PROFILES: