Hue

Matteo Uggeri graduated in Design at Politecnico di Milano and started playing in 1996 with the Der Einzige project, inspired by the industrial movement of the late 70s, which remains one of his reference points for the following years; in that context, however, he developed a growing interest for melody and field recordings. His first work in the field is “Un’estate senza pioggia”, a sound diary of the torrid August of 2003, during which Uggeri carried his microphones around central Italy, meeting and working with fellow musicians. The collaborative component has been at the heart of his production over recent years; he has worked with Italian as well as foreign artists and constantly explored different musical languages, from dark ambient ("Kapnos", with the Meerkat collective, that includes Luca Sigurtà, Punck, Logoplasm and Fabio Selvafiorita), to concrete music ("Erimos", with M.B. and Fhievel), to EBM ("Slowmotion", with Telepherique), to the kraut rock ("Quatro Erogenic Occupy", with the Dutch collective De Fabriek), to electro-acoustic ("Autumn is Coming", with Andrea Ferraris and Mujika Easel and "Pagetos", with Luca Mauri and Francesco Giannico) to folk ("Fields of Corn", with Bob Corn). Only recently two solo works have been released: “Four Steps on Points” on Fluid Audio, in 2013, and “Untitled Winter”, on Scissor Tails (2014), records in which the acoustic component becomes more important. The collaboration with Sparkle in Grey has been running uninterrupted alongside these activities since 2000, Sparkle in Grey forming a permanent four-member band since 2005; with the group he shared unclassifiable and eclectic records, including an LP with Tex La Homa/Matt Shaw and a CD with the American Controlled Bleeding. Hallmark of the group are the illustrations with the distinctive image of the ’'Roundmen'’, whose pictures Uggeri draws with various techniques, also experimenting with disc graphics and rare videos between analog and digital, so far the two main poles and cornerstones of his artistic research. A good example is “Remote Control” (2011), a work on two VHS that mocks Italian TV habits showing an hour and a half zapping and whose soundtrack is provided by other artists involved in the project, including Zbigniew Karkowski, Jan Yun, Wooden Veil, Eraldo Bernocchi and If, Bwana. The work is published by Moriremo Tutti Records, Uggeri’s own label, a sort of counterpoint to the milder Grey Sparkle, a brand under which he often self-publishes his works.