PAUL PRESTIPINO ["Preh-sti-PEE-no"] is an Australian composer, sound designer, theatre maker, and songwriter working across recorded music, theatre, film and installation.
​​
Raised on Whadjuk Noongar country in Perth, of Sicilian descent, he began drumming in rock bands at eleven, taught himself classical guitar, bass and piano, and later studied sound design and electroacoustic composition in The Hague. A journey through Egypt in 2000 sparked a lasting obsession with field recording and place. Environmental, mechanical, and human atmospheres, both immediate and remembered, often inform his music.
​​​​​
His work in theatre, film, installation and radio (frequently as co-devisor as well as composer) has featured in award-winning productions, often new works engaging with political or sensitive subject matter. His scores have been described as "haunting" (The Guardian, UK), "chillingly evocative" (Sydney Morning Herald), "brilliant" (The West Australian), and "ingeniously designed" (AussieTheatre). Collaborators over the years include version 1.0, ABC Radio National, Belvoir, Ilbijerri, Black Swan, Jim Sharman, Roman Paska and Societas Raffaello Sanzio.
​​​
His experience as a storyteller echoes through his two songwriting albums, released fifteen years apart. Tunnel (2008, reissued 2026) is built from long-form songs woven with personal field recordings from three continents - horse hooves from Virginia, crows from the Western Australian outback, his own blood in a radiology lab, scenes from Union Square, New York, during the week of 9/11. Drum Media described it as "beguiling and intricate... in the stately, sparse vicinity of Talk Talk's later albums."
​​​
Animals and Spirits (2026) focuses more inward - nylon-string guitar, mandolin and voice captured with a handheld mic at a kitchen table in a cottage surrounded by bush - raw takes left intact, then shaped over several years with sparse electronics. Written in the wake of the 2017 US presidential inauguration, the album follows a lone protagonist navigating a post-civilised world toward an epilogue where only crickets and frogs remain.
​​
After many years working and searching across the US and Europe, he is currently based on Gadigal land in Sydney.
​​