About Lingua Shapta
Lingua Shapta is an ongoing project, started by Rich Fantasia and Jonathan Russell, to combine music and spoken-word in new and unique ways. The two began collaborating in 1999 under the name Fusion. In 2003, under the name Lingua Shapta, Rich and Jonathan relased Raw, a dark blend of staccato rhythms and haunting, disturbing lyrics.
Rich Fantasia
Rich has been playing and creating music for 17 years, first with the bass and three years later, piano and synths. In addition to studying audio engineering at 5 Towns College and music education at Adelphi University, Rich has played bass professionally in Circle of Dust, on the Relativity music label.
Rich developed his musical talents in Jesus Freak, an industrial band with Myk Amoia, and Christ Cage, an experimental industrial band. After connecting with the positivity and spiritualness of the rave scene, Rich blossomed as Pthelo, billed as Intelligent Acid for the club set. Rich is a consummate musician, also playing guitar, dulcimer, and percussion.
Jonathan Russell
Jonathan is a creative generalist. He loves to write, sing, draw, paint, and noodle around on the occasional instrument. He is known for his poetry, and published a collection, titled “SUB/con,” in 1997. He has been known to code webpages, too, and considers this a self-referential wink: Hi, Jon!
