Aimée Portioli is a Berlin-based Dutch-Italian composer and sound designer who makes experimental electronic music with a cinematic touch. Atmospheric yet rhythmically complex, her work is influenced by minimalism and ambient music and incorporates a wide range of contemporary compositional and production techniques.

Photo: Marie Haefner

The name Grand River evokes nature, scale, and movement, all key forces in Portioli’s work. 2017’s Crescente EP was named one of XLR8R’s best releases of the year. She followed this with her debut album Pineapple (Spazio Disponibile, 2018), which garnered praise from The Quietus among others, while its follow-up Blink A Few Times To Clear Your Eyes (Editions Mego, 2020) was positively received by Resident Advisor and The Verge, and was elected among best albums of 2020 by Inverted Audio. Her work has separately appeared on compilations by Ghostly International, Tresor, and Longform Editions.

Besides her studio albums, Portioli has created original sound art installations for Rome’s La Galleria Nazionale and Milan’s Il Pianeta, a project of Terraforma Festival. She also contributed her interpretation of a meditation piece for the Soundworks app together with MUTEK, and collaborated with Ableton for the creation of Live 11. She also collaborates with visual artist Marco Ciceri on special A/V performances, as well as on the visuals for One Instrument, the record label she founded that invites artists to respond to a unique creative brief – to create a piece of music using just one instrument.

A member of SHAPE Platform’s 2021 programme, Grand River has performed at major international venues and festivals, including Berghain, MUTEK, Horst Arts & Music Festival, Funkhaus, Maintenant Festival, Le Guess Who?, De School, the Labyrinth, WOS Festival, and many more.

  • Where Do We Run From Here, by Grand River

  • Where Do We Run From Here, by Grand River