Angelo Bruschini

Biography

Angelo Bruschini 

(08.05.1961 – 23.10.2023)

Angelo was a guitarist, producer, composer and musical director whose professional musical career spanned over 40 years. By the 1990’s Angelo was a member of two of Bristol’s biggest bands spanning both the indie & triphop music scenes, The Blue Aeroplanes & Massive Attack. Notably, Angelo also worked as Alison Moyet’s musical director and produced Strangelove’s eponymous album in 1997. Angelo was a stalwart of the Bristol music scene and contributed to countless studio projects and soundtracks for Film & TV such as I.D & CSI.

Angelo started performing professionally at the age of 16 after realising that he was better than ‘just good’ at playing the guitar. He rapidly found himself joining local bands The Rimshots & The Numbers, who released a track on the 4 Alternatives EP in 1979 and on the legendary Avon Calling compilation from the same year

He then got his big start becoming a member of The Blue Aeroplanes in 1984. He stayed with the band until 1992, contributing to the legendary LPs Swagger and Beatsongs along with frontman Gerard Langley. When asked which track he was most proud of composing throughout his career, Angelo replied “Jacket Hangs (from Swagger) is the one I’m most proud of”.

In 1994 when Massive Attack were recording sessions for their 2^nd album Protection, Angelo was brought in as a session musician. He also played and composed on their 1998 masterpiece Mezzanine and was asked to join as an official member of the band. He also contributed to 2003’s 100th Window, and continued to tour with the band until 2016.

His last major gig was playing with The Blue Aeroplanes at the Bristol Harbour Festival in July 2022.

In May 2023, Angelo revealed that he had been diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of lung cancer, whilst working on an album project with HZLB. Angelo chose defiantly to continue to work on their project, cherry picking from his archives along with their new work, the pair focused on Angelo getting as much of his music and creative input captured as possible. Angelo boldly worked on his contributions right up to just 10 days before his passing. Angelo’s legendary guitar sounds & insanely talented multi-genre genius compositions & arrangements will be available for all to hear and celebrate his legacy throughout his final work in the ‘Untold Stories’ album project, which HZLB is proudly planning to release on PHONO throughout A/W 2025-26.