Musical Biography
Piergiuseppe Ciranna in the eighties
Photo by Stefano Padovan
1974 PC takes guitar lessons
1975- 76 Writes his first songs, “My switch” and what would become “Killers are rich”.
1978 A friend lends him a synth , the Arp Odyssey and Ciranna discovers electronics. He records his first electronic experiments with a rudimentary overdubbing system.
1979 PC begins his collaboration with Alessandro Pizzin, founding member of Ruins and becomes part of the band from Mestre as a guitarist but showing from the beginning more interest in expressing his creativity as a composer rather than as a instrumentalist.
1980 Ruins as a band takes a break; Piergiuseppe makes a decision that will change his artistic path by purchasing a 4-track recorder and a 6-channel mixer: The Anna Rich studios were born ! PC begins to compose and record on his own a series of instrumental tracks where he mixes experimentation, icy jazz, ambient and electronic atmospheres.
Many of these songs will be used by Ruins to resume their brilliant collaboration as a duo, culminating in some live performances.
1981-1985 In the autumn of 1981 Ruins for the first time begin to record songs in a more traditional form and Piergiuseppe begins to write the lyrics for his own vocal tracks.
The activity of the Ruins is intense and without boundaries. The music ranges from funk to electronics, from progressive rock to avantgarde, from extreme experimentation to the most enjoyable sounds. Many works were produced both as a duo and various line – up. The single Short Wave (1981), L.P. Marea (1983), E.P. Ruins (1984, which includes the cult piece FIRE) are some of the most relevant works of this intense period. Also in this period Ciranna continues his own research and records many solo experimental works , some of them released within the Ruins project.
1986 Despite the success obtained (also thanks to the “Fire” music video in heavy rotation on italian TV Networks) management problems and difficulties lead to the decision to leave the “ music business” . Piergiuseppe successfully chooses a different professional career but in the following years continues composing and recording music without any commercial purpose.
2010-2011 The work of the two Ruins is being rediscovered and the label Minimal Wave from New York releases an anthology covering the period 81-85, called “The Art Dance”.
2012-2018 Ciranna and Pizzin start again to talk about common projects and create and record new versions of “old “ songs and brand new songs; most of these new recording will be available on Bandcamp in 2019.
Two other compilations “Minimal Tapes Vol. 2 ” and “Danza Meccanica Vol.2 “include tracks by Ruins.
2018 November Australian label Mothball cuts Ruins ” New Record “an anthology of tracks taken from Side Roads, a collection originally released in 1983.
2019 February Stroom from Belgium releases the Ruins E.P. ” Occasional Visits ” including eight tracks ( some previously unreleased ) recorded between 1981 and 1984 and carefully restored by PC.
2019 April Ruins make a digital download collection called ” Past…Present…Tense… ” available on Bandcamp
2019 October Music From Memory of Holland rereleases Ruins cult Art record “Marea” , with restored versions of the original master tapes and now including a bonus 7” with four unreleased tracks.
2020 July Italian Label Materiali Sonori releases a double L.P. including the four E.P. originally available in the eighties with the italian cult fanzine “Rock Garage “. ” I don’t know” , arranged for the five member band was Ruins contribution to that obscure underground project
2022 May ” The Dark Side of Italo Disco ” compiled by famous german label ZYX Music includes the first version of ” FIRE” by Ruins
2023 January Ciranna and Pizzin start working on a new project, writing and recording new brand songs for a new album
2023 March “End in End”, an obscure unreleased track recorded in 1983 is included in “TVE” compilation by Italian label Esperpento
2024 March The ” lost combo tapes” recorded between 1982 and 1983 by Ruins into a five members line-up are for the first time available thanks to ” BRAIN FLAKES” . The original 4 track recording had remained largely unpublished at the time and seemed irretrievably lost. They have been brilliantly recovered from the archives by PC that remixed and restored the tracks
2024 October Ruins’ self-titled EP (also known as the “grey record”) was originally released in late spring 1984 and actually represents a relevant spot in the Italian independent music scene of the early 1980s. Spitlle Record releases a 40th anniversary edition of E.P. plus 4 Bonus tracks
A more extensive biography of Ruins is inside the cover of “The Art Dance” or consulting Discogs