Dino Bramanti 1969 - 2008

I was just informed by sound artist Andrea Borghi that his
friend and collaborator Dino Bramanti died of a heart attack
back in July... I was in contact with him myself over the
past year, but had not heard from him in a while.

Dino might be best known around the world as a member of
the group Sinistri who has released work on the Hapna label in
Sweden. There has been a collaboration release planned by Dino
and Andrea entitled "Quaalude" on and/OAR since last year,
but sadly I haven't been able to get to it before his untimely
passing. Plans are indeed still in the works for 2009.
"Quaalude" was a performance / installation that premiered
in 2002 at the Galleria C'Arte D'Identita' in Pietrasanta, Italy.
Here is Dino's bio (taken from the Sinisti website):

Dino Bramanti lived in Pietrasanta (Italy) where he was
born in 1969. His cultural background is a mixed affair
between classical humanistic education and
mathematical and technical studies. In 1988 graduated
at Liceo Classico in Viareggio and in 1996 took PhD in
Telecommunications Engineering at the University of Pisa,
working on statistical noise modelling. Being affected
since his teens by an endless appetite for recorded
sounds and musics (after being folgorated by listening
to Dead Kennedy's "In God We Trust, INC" in early
eighties), he soon started to explore and collect every
kind record he was able to find and bring home.

Self-taught musician on bass and trumpet, during the
90's he's been working as DJ in several clubs and radio
stations, mainly spinning jazz, black music, rock and
what's in between. Firmly persuaded that noise is not
such a bad thing as good engineers are used to depict it,
he started moving towards electronic sound composition,
digital signal manipulation and sample grinding, writing
and playing his own processing applications in Csound,
Supercollider and finally Max/MSP.

Current main work is focused on the concept of
de-composition/improvisation applied to live performance
for laptops and custom made music software. He's a
ghost member and collaborator of broken-funk combo
Sinistri and member of its cubist incarnation Sinistri++,
representing a playground for further experimentations
in the field of non-metric, non-linear music.
Additionally, he's carrying on the "Bonarosa" project with
Andrea Borghi, solo explorations as "Ampang" and he's
sharing his time between digital art works and the "work
as system"/software designer in the field of IP related
protocols for telecommunications industry.

Recent Works:
with Sinistri:
2005 - Timing The Instant C, track on Sonic Protest CD-R
2005 - Free Pulse CD, Hapna Records
2004 - Music for the DVD Mattino di T.Camaiani & G.P.Guerini
2004 - Norway Pulse, track on Cottage Industrial Vol.3 CD-R, Humbug Records with Sinistri++
2005 - live at Placard Festival, Bologna (Italy)
2004 - Black Pulse vs. White Space [for hidden musicians and real-time processing]
- live project, Raum, Bologna (Italy) as part of Desco Music live series. various:
2004 - Contribution in BAU - Contenitore di cultura (con)temporanea, #0
2003 - L'ospite ingrato, un'ossessione Medicea -- sound installation in Orizzonti-Belvedere dell'Arte,
Forte Belvedere -Firenze (cat. Skira) (with TIMET, M. Di Rosa and A. Bosshard)
2003 - Sonic Pills on Compilatione, TIMET
2002 - Quaalude, a quiet interlude - sound installation and natural sound generator -premiered in
Pietrasanta, galleria c'Arte d'Identita'. A CD release is planned on and/OAR in 2009.

My thoughts go out to Dino's family and friends.