Fabrizio Paterlini Releases New Album 'Layers Naked'

Italian composer and pianist Fabrizio Paterlini today releases Layers Naked (feat. LoopArc), a stripped-back reworkingof his 2025 album Layers, recorded entirely live in the studio with violinist Stefano Zeni and cellist Marco Remondini – together known as LoopArc – who played on the original record and joined Paterlini on the road.

Listen to “Death Is Not the End” HERE

Listen to Layers Naked HERE

The project was born out of the trio’s live shows. While Layers was built on loops, electronics and layered arrangements, night after night the three musicians found themselves stepping outside those structures to improvise. On the new record those elements fall away: the electronics are gone, leaving just piano, violin and cello.

Curious to see whether the pieces could stand on their own, Paterlini took Zeni and Remondini into the studio with no written arrangements: before each take, they would spend a few minutes talking through the piece, settle on an intention and start playing. Most of the album was cut in two or three full takes, live in a single room. ‘Vertical Limit’ is the one exception: what you hear is the first and only take. The trio chose to keep every take whole, with no edits – a choice that became central to the album’s identity. When it came to picking the final versions, the three more often than not went with the take that felt most alive over the cleanest one, imperfections and all. Hence the Naked added to the original title.

Speaking about the album, Paterlini says: “Throughout the Layers tour, every night we’d step outside the structure of the songs for a few minutes: we’d improvise, listen to each other, then find our way back in. Those moments became the best part of the shows. Layers Naked was born there: recorded live, the three of us in the same room, always choosing the take that felt most alive over the perfect one. It’s not a new version of Layers. It’s a curiosity that started on stage and turned into a record.”

Layers Naked is also the first album Paterlini has engineered, mixed and mastered himself.

The album announcement arrived alongside the single ‘Death Is Not the End’, the record’s closing track. Born from ‘Chained Melody’, which appears just before it on the tracklist, it marks the first time one of Paterlini’s compositions has been set to lyrics. The words are by Robert Gates, a monk who writes theological texts for his monastery and, in his spare time, verses inspired by the music that moves him. Vocals come from Leisy, a young Italian singer at the very start of her career.