Gothica web-zine, 09/2004

Interview - Kirlian Camera

G: Let's start, of course, speaking about the last "Invisible Front": somebody surely asked for it about 1000 times but what is it this invisible front? Why maybe does it not exist? Or it exists only in head of each of us, and do we have to find it?
ELENA - The travel that this album describes, it's projected toward a fantastic scenario, that overpasses the humanity limits. We set the theme of the album in a not-dimension, then absolutely a not terrestrial concept. People that once were considered crazy said many times to see a place made of emptiness, and studying even in surface we could see that there is the possibility that all of this is not only sci-fi; we wanted to describe this space as the place that includes science and madness, and the barrier we put between the real world and this new not-dimension is just the invisible front, that's a sort of gate, of shield.

G: The booklet closes with the phrase "where men cannot live" : this increased even more the total impression that the record gave to me, I mean that sort of aseptic travel over the human matter... of course this is a personal vision, I was just curious to know if it could be a point of view of the work.
ANGELO - a medium/regular human being would be destroyed immediately, in those zones, as well as a little flexible intelligence, then not complete, so probably negative. They are areas that destroy some kind of signals still vaguely primordial, negative, not completely evolved, and also who is able to know the access has difficulties to resist avoiding to lose his mind. More than a sci-fi story, this record opens the doors to a romanticized reality concerning concrete themes. In every case, I cannot say if those zones are "wonderful" or terrible yet.

G: We talked about human matter: which is your vision of the humanity? I'd like to ask because in Invisible Front I felt some sensation of harmony, as a sense of suspension from body and time reached after having surpassed the despair of the human consistency. It seems almost your "more pacific" record, or however the record where we can breath an extremely static climate, less contentious... or maybe is it the famous quiet before the storm?
ELENA - I wouldn't consider this a quiet record. We cannot have the peace if instead of the war there is a prolix and bored fight of the human kind against the good sense. And this walking is just static, walking of good happy rabbits that forget what they want just after their birth. This record speaks about beauty and despair, but it was written with rage and aggressivity, and I'm sure that both of these two components can be felt in every breath.

G: In some tracks, we can think about Nefertiti One, there is a reflection about the beauty: what do you identify it with? Could it be always tied to this "overhuman" element I was talking above?
ELENA - I believe that digging well in the shit of the world, we can find a light enchant, incredibly nice and elegant, how the humanity could be. The story of "Nefertiti One" is a pure invention, absurd and romantic. The body of a wonderful woman has been launched in the space to show a disappearing humanity, as a sort of a certain religiousness has disappeared to be not confused with moralism. The beauty is in what is pure, healthy, that will remain clean forver and it needs neither to do a Devil pact, nor to be frightened of God to exist. But, it's strange how such "substance" is very rare around...

G: In which way did writing this work together with Elena influence? How did the process go, the collaboration between both of you? In which way did you interact to succeed at the end to generate such a product? And if you had to underline the main difference between this process and one, as in past, almost by "one man bad", which one would you choose?
ANGELO - I arrived at the thresholds of the last two album almost alone and, sincerly, I needed to try again "within a group". Since always I follow the dream to have a working team, in which one I could be a creative entity by sure, but not isolated. Elena already wondered me for the music of "Still air", composed for a good part by her, but with the last album I believe to be united with her even more in the original spirit of this "titanic" project that is KC. Through Tenente Fox (just Elena...), I was able to go closer to my "soul" without fear, not only musically. This could cause some problem too... due the extreme intolerance I'm used to have, now in expansion. The relationships with the external are becoming tigher. I don't have any interest outside this group, or some magic and silent night. I don't care to travel, to talk, to compare myself... People wants to wonder you, win you, be submissed by you. People wants to exist through other existances, through adulation, vampirism, exploitation, emulation. I feel only a great disgust for what surrounds me and a great love for what that I don't see. Elena (re)transmitted me this love, surely strong, dramatic. The music, "our" music began to be influenced. When I listen to "Invisible Front" I see my story and I know to exist, to have no need of idlers, philosophers, judges, critics, reviewers, adulators... and this, just being far away from happiness, it's at least a moment of hope, or, at least, of acceptance of a future where only God or what is similar to him will be the judge. All of this opposed to the truth will be eliminated.

G: Ok stop talking about the last work, I believe it's enough... I saw the last concert in Mestre, at Jam: "finally" everything went ok for systems and situation, rarely I previously saw Bergamini so satisfied (or at least this appeared to me). It was touching to see the cure that he put to coordinate musicians and the audience too answered with enthusiasm: what has it been due to? Or better, do you think that an "ideal" situation exists for the perfect success of a live? (and I don't want to refer to the weary and very boring polemics concerning deleted concerts, ideological interpretations etc etc)
ANGELO - Listen to me... I never had a "normal" concert, in Italy. All the efforts we did to resolve a hard evening have been forgotten, maybe even little or never noticed. Sometimes we had lots of efforts to remain on stage and not leave the club and audience to a boring dispute about ticket reimbursement. It's useless having a personal mega-phonic, if the system is held by the chewing-gum, because not even Daniel Lanois is able to walk on the waters! Nothing is important, here, nothing works. The audience sometimes understands it and it thanks you if you try to communicate the same something notwithstanding whistles, feedbacks, lack of monitors and so on. Part (a little one, fortunatly) of the same public defames you around, because, however, you are "exposed" and they need to talk about something, isn't it? I know people that plays live programming the last released CD without even remixing the tracks, not even leaving the voice live. Others use the voice live and the base completely in playback, totally derived by the disc, in fact. Some other else do two raspberries in an "industral" or "avant-garde" contest, having no problem at all to be tuned up or clashed, not even knowing that what they do is old and with no interest or attitude that could appear at least a bit "glamour". All of this people permits to break the balls to who must face paradoxial situations, but nobody of them can say "your concert has problems" or "your concert sucks", because their concert is based on playback or on mended sounds, dedicated to the terrible motto "experimentalism/noiseness=culture" that's (un)wonderful and satisfies your existance of lost intellectual. To read heavy books and copy the language of the others put you in a safe place instead of being considered idiot: then if you season with a bit of healthy egocentrism and leadership, then you can find two stupids that listen to you. Maybe you write some review about the concerts of those you feel unpleasants. Review that will be read by the usual stupids. A few years ago I had a concert in the North Italy in a club where the monitors were literally out of work. We played as two groups without being able to tune up, because also the feedback amplification from the external returned in delay and you clashed and lost the time too. We proceeded, we did miracles, but the miracles are not enough in those situations. We never said the name of the club and we will never say it. Result: the guilt of that disaster was ours. I manage a new system, recently: if the club has not a skilled phonic we don't go on the stage. Alternatively, we also thought to listen to the personal problems of the phonics once these were excessively "particular". Normally they have critical situations with the girlfriend, so they are happy when we sell Tain-the-doll-that-entertain with 50% discount, whose inflatable lady we became importers for the despair. In the third place, we bought also a flamethrower to remove definitively the garbage and the bad smell from the audience, but it is still in prove. Result: the concerts improved. But you see that one day, being to play in a shitful club with the owner that cries because the concert will be deleted and he must feed three toxic children, then we will decide to go on stage without monitor, lights, phonics and so on, then we will hear that we are deficients. Correctly.

G: Always speaking of live activity, does a group/artist/project exist you want to share the stage with?
ANGELO - I don't know.

G: Side project: I loved and still love Stalingrad, for the coldness and the monumental sound that it succeeds to create. Will you release other material or will it remain an isolated experiment?
ANGELO - New material will be released. Some tracks are pratically completed, but we must wait still for a while...

G: About collaborations, it is impossible to speak about nothing but Jarboe... asking for no questions you already answered many times, I'd like only to ask for a very banal question, I mean if you listened to the record of Jarboe with Neurosis... I believe this is the definitive and evident demonstration of how a voice, a voice with the same dignity and importance of an instrument (maybe more), can enrich and transform a music that, apparently, could seem "distant"... I always liked a certain "dialectical" at music level, with strong contrasts, and I believe that this is also an element always present in Kirlian Camera.
ANGELO - Jarboe has a notable passion, cleverly guided by an "explicit convenience", I mean by a mirror for the skylarks quite refined, able to touch the chords of the human emotionalism. I believe that her way to sing belongs to the world, then. It's just a compliment, of course, but we move in absolute pureness level and iron research, making mistakes and good things, it depends. A kind of "ultra-intolerance" little oriented to the forced dialogue, falsely democratic level. We don't love the world, its pain, its joy, its work and so on. We don't find that the "human poetry" regards us in any way, for what concerns composition. So the presence of Jarboe is a good complement and fits perfectly, or something similar.

G: The usual final question that I MUST ask... what do you listen at the moment? There are new groups/artists, either Italian that international, that you liked particularly? I noticed that since some time there was a come-back in the scene of historical acts of minimal electro and early ebm like Front 242, Daf, Nitzer Ebb, Insekt, the always active Dirk Ivens but also Kraftwerk, if we want... Is is a case? Or maybe did some people try to give a "lesson" to the uncountless (false) phenomenon of the recent technoebm/future pop wave?
ANGELO - I will be unpleasent still once, but now... Let's say that I listen very little to the recent releases. Unfortunatly I have to listen to many samplers and, from that side, the situation is dreadful. Saying this, I can affirm that somebody is trying to do something, at least he is convinced. Apart the historical groups, that sometimes they are not better than their followers... I can say that the situation in Europe brings in my mind no names that we can quote as interesting examples. I'm listening a bit of Muse, Rammstein, Goldfrapp, but this is not underground music... Maybe in Italy there is a brushwood vaguely more interesting, comparing to the other countries... so, despite the genres, I think about new proposals like Letatlin, Chirleison, so bands of Small Voices and... the same band I don't remember the name, if not in a second time, always too much late!

FLA

Taken from: http://www.gothica.it

English translation: Adalberto Orrigo - 03.12.2004