Biography
June74 is the acronym used by Fabrizio Poce for his solo activities and since 2001 his exclusive artistic project flag.Fabrizio is not a classically trained musician. He likes to see himself as a creative developer rather than a musical performer, his references being in science and technology rather than rock or pop culture. This makes him an independent player, influenced by many musical and artistic, past and contemporary, scenes, but actually attached to none and purely interested in the enjoinment of creation of his own material.
His background in communication and computer engineering plays a key role in his activities, not only for practical reasons but also as a method of work: analyse, interpret, experiment, produce are all phases of his approach to creation.
The love for technology is matched by the tool set Fabrizio utilizes: computer and electronic devices, surrounded by acoustic instruments. Although not a virtuoso by any mean, he loves to paint dynamic musical landscapes merging layers of synthesisers and synthetic drums with additional traditional elements, such as pianoforte, strings, guitar, bass, acoustic drums or vocals. And creation does not end with making music: Fabrizio creations extend into the domain of visuals and software engineering for music, art and performance.
Early Years
Fabrizio was born in 1974 in Rome (Italy), and since the age of 16 he started experimenting with technology and music together with friends from school and neighbourhood. Using limited instrumentation and no other knowledge rather than the reference of contemporary bands, Fabrizio took a substantial creative role in his first band, named “Electro Alba”. The band, composed by Fabrizio (main composer, programmer and keyboardist), Fabio Carnevale (lyrics and vocals), Alessandro Polinori (keyboard and alternative composer) and Federico Rosi (also keyboard and alternative composer) focused on dark oriented synth-pop. The band enjoyed limited but warm appreciations from the indie scene in Rome and produced a CD in 1994 named “Dal Nulla”.
Leaving the band in 1996, while willing to explore different creative territories (e.g. including acoustic instruments, such guitars and percussions as part of the tool set, with an overall more dynamic approach) Fabrizio settled a limited home studio in his parents house and started experimenting with sampling and synthesis as well as properly learning both guitar and bass guitar.
Though this phase he produced a solo EP/Demo (“Interfering”) under the acronym of June74. Having no live activities and promotion the work essentially remained confined to Fabrizio’s network, with the exception of a few web-blog encouraging reviews.
Chrome Koran
At the end of 1998 Fabrizio issued an advertisement on a local paper seeking for a lyric and vocal partner, with the idea of forming again a band. It was in this way that Fabrizio and Alessandro Caruso (aka “Ale”) met. Joined by talented guitarist and friend, Alessandro Daidone (aka “Sandro”), who also collaborated on the years of Electro Alba, the trio formed the band “Chrome Koran” (name of a fictional band part of William Gibson futuristic novels).
The first priority for Chrome Koran was setting down material and ideas. Fabrizio had already a set of compositions roughly completed and the band improvised and processed this material. By the summer of 1999 the auto-produced CD “Flowers” was completed.
The CK work “Flowers” was an exciting creative experience which resulted in mature example of crossover between electronics, rock and experimentation. The work was very well received within the regional audience and the band was able to perform a series of concerts on a number of well known venues and halls in Rome and central Italy (including Villaggio Globale, Alpheus, Black Out). In addition the band work got selected for the local round of the famous indie music context “Arezzo Wave” and CK was able, even without an established supporting fan base, to win two of these context rounds.
Appreciation from the local media included several regional radio’s supporting airplay of “Flowers” songs. A full 1-hour interview with the cult radio “Citta’ Futura” took place in the summer of 2000.
Hiatus and "Earthlife" solo project
Due to Fabrizio wish to explore a different culture and professional environment and consequent relocation to the Netherlands, the band split up by the end of 2000. Anyway the CK members remain still good musical and spiritual mates as in fact Fabrizio, Ale (Caruso) and Sandro (Daidone) keep contributing to each other work on a best effort basis.
Anyway from 2001 to 2007 Fabrizio remained essentially musically quiet. Anyway this was a period of extremely importance for his private and professional life and substantially contributed to Fabrizio stability and personal development.
From 2007 onwards Fabrizio got musically busy (very busy) once again. At first by curiosity he started digging with a more scientific approach into the engineering of sound, including synthesis, sampling and looping techniques, as well in learning more on harmony and classic music culture. A lot of experimentations (homework actually) from this period emerged as embryonic compositions.
In 2009 Fabrizio decided the material, as incidentally recorded while experimenting, deserved proper production. This is how the acronym June74 became a Fabrizio’s main project flag.
The studio work of 2009 and 2010 (entirely and autonomously performed within the means of his personal home studio) was concluded in September 2010 and the solo work Earthlife saw the light. A work Fabrizio is definitively proud of, “Earthlife”, is currently distributed, though cooperation with the independent label Believe Digital, on all major Internet digital shops.
Uncharted Territory
The following period (2011 till present) got Fabrizio progressively involved in further experimentation, throughout edging creative territories such as audio-reactive, generative visuals and software coding for performance and production enhancement. He created his own tool set for that, melting Max/MSP/Jitter, Java, OpenGL, GLSL into Ableton Live / Max for Live and created J74 V-Module, a modular visual sequencing and improvisation environment. Encouraged by collaborators and friends, he shared this environment as freeware on the Internet. The suite got extremely well received and has a large community of followers.
In term of actual visual art, Fabrizio, under the June74 flag, participated to quite a number of festivals and cooperated with many artists. Visuals have become this way a crucial and stable part of his activity.
From 2012 Fabrizio also started distributing under the J74 software line all the musical oriented tools he makes. His work got spotted by several international web-blogs such as CDM, Ableton Live blog, DJTechTools, De-Bug. Making software for creation is now a keystone in Fabrizio's professional activities.
As of today Fabrizio is still working on the June74 project.