Sciocco's melodic music creeps into the listener's brain, bewitches their heart and infects their soul.
Sciocco is singer/songwriter Nicola Malena, who has been making music in many guises for more than 17 years, not least as part of British band Negative For Francis.
The Guardian Guide named their debut record Save Yr Money single of the week. This track and their second release, the double A-side Losing Control/Love Bug, was produced by Paul Epworth and received rave reviews from the likes of Drowned In Sound and Artrocker. The boys supported Babyshambles around the UK and toured Europe, but despite their critical acclaim, they split up in November 2006.
Since then, the band's frontman, bassist and songwriter Nick has been writing and making music on his own under the name Sciocco.
Taking inspiration from influences as diverse as Devo, Nirvana and The Beatles, Nicola enjoys experimenting with a multitude of genres - from pop, dance and electro to folk, blues, ballads and reworked covers. His song Rows was named Track Of The Day by The Times Online.


Groundwire originally consisted of three Enfield-based bandmates: Nick singing and playing guitar, his lifetime friend Darren on the drums and their schoolfriend Steven, also on guitar. We started rehearsing in Slippery Jacks studio in Harlow, where we met Ian, who played the bass. Many love letters to Ian later, the band was finally complete.

The line-up changed over the years to include Jamie on bass and Jonny Boy on drums, but our regular venue (the Square in Harlow) always stayed the same. Paul took a star turn on the drums and Ian sang his heart out as the frontman when Darren and Nick foolishly chose to jet off to Czech Republic in favour of the Harlow Battle Of The Bands final.

We had a brief moment of fame when we appeared on Harlow's Red TV cable station. Our 15 minutes was originally filmed after an especially raucous gig, but the unimpressed director claimed the tape had gone 'missing' and arranged to interview us again on a nearby, peaceful, grassy verge once we had sobered up. We still didn't make any sense though.

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