Cucina Povera is the solo project of Maria Rossi, a Karelian-Luxembourgish sound artist and composer based in Glasgow. The project works with electronic and experimental music, and concentrates on marginal details and close observation.

Approach and sound

Rossi’s work with Cucina Povera uses repeated motifs to draw attention to the beauty of ordinary life. The music often centres on everyday sounds and textures, with references to creaky tenement floors, boiling kettles and leaking taps. It is made with cheap and rudimentary equipment, and turns simple sonic material into spare, resourceful and spontaneous pieces.

Themes

The project presents everyday life as something with its own mysticism, and treats domestic and urban sounds as material for composition. Its title reflects an approach similar to peasant cooking: taking basic ingredients and shaping them into something expressive and inventive.