Marble Moon #7, 04/1995

To photograph with the reality

Magenta, also the rocks know, is the place where there was a big battle in the name of a common cause. The evening of 18/2/95 the town close to Milan has been theater of an intense and emotional concert in the same time, warm and provocative, where Kirlian Camera gave the big demonstration to be an excellent band, deserving the value that the international critic tributed to it. The interview comments by itself, everyone can see the conclusions. We can say that now we know better three persons that gather the future of a work began years ago and seem to lose in the night of the times. The silent and smiling Simone, mind of T.A.C. and other side-project and graphic of innete capacity, the nice and loquacious Emilia, sometimes interested more in psychiatry that studies in the University; fine weaver of music and lyrics and he, the guru of the situation, Angelo Bergamini, apparently with the head in the clouds and always tired but lucid and reflexive about the music. Angelo knows so much about this environment and tens of boys demonstrated me reaching him in the backstage after the concert for advices and suggestions. It's a sort of marabout (please, no negative meaning!) that spreads his wisdom but never intimidates you. But never make to believe him that is in this way, he would get angry for sure!

How does the '95 begin for you and Kirlian? Are you always tired and in search of a bit of rest?
Yes, I'm very tired and stressed and moreover under treatment of two psychiatrists, one in Pisa and one in Parma. I'm full of medicines and a bit bored of all the 'public relations' I have do to every day, unfortunatly. I mean, I'm not bored of the music I play but, for example, if I think about the next and long tournee I am already tired. Fortunatly the audience gives strength, otherwise...

Could you explain definitevly this story with Discordia? Did you sign for them or remain, in some way, 'indipendent'?
The truth is that we are not 'indie' at all. We signed with Discordia an exclusive for three years, I mean we are 'ownership' of the German label for three years then we will return to be Heaven's Gate, just like the co-ownership of the soccer players. They leave us free to do the music we want, without any interference, and this is already a good point: for example, they gave us full trust for our last CD and we made to listen them to the completed work only just it was going for mastering, this means good relationship, isn't it?

Tell us a fundamental reason why, in the past time, you said no to the Hyperium.
Mah, I heard few alluring things about them and this left me a bit cold. Moreover I don't like their graphic, the covers are all similar, deja-vu... Notwithstanding this I proposed a band, Oceania, where Mauro Montacchini plays, and it seems they are very interested to produce something of my friend and collaborator.

Does the music allow you to live decently or you have to do something else? Is it a passion that allows to live?
Yes, we live, even if Emilia continues to study and soon she will take the degree in Medicine. But they are not all roses and flowers because we take care of everything, often we have the direct contacts and this makes me think that before or after I will fall. I believe to get crazy with the labels, the management, the studios... More contacts you have and more get tired and more die. A true hallucination!

How much there is business and how much originality in the current scene? I mean, why does Germany become the nineties England?
Germany is a collection of English trashes, with no doubt. We can just to think about the various clones there are and that in the interviews they affirm to be influenced by everything but the bands they are more similar in an evident way. It seems to hear many Sisters Of Mercy or John Foxx, bands that I listen to with pleasure... The originals, of course. It's good however that the flow continues and the bands can grow also artistically, a good 20% realizes good things but the remaining 80% is really unlistenable.

Outside Italy everyone asks me why do you tour outside Italian borders and not in Italy?
It's true, our music is very followed outside more than in Italy but it's about 21 years I play and I think that the Italian situation has not changed at all: medias are not interested and moves towards the fashion genres, there are too many magazines about heavy metal and also techno. The usual Rockerilla and Rumore do very little for this new scene and I confess you that when one of these magazines published the review of one of our last albums, I wondered to read positive notes. I think that today the fanzines, with their tam-tam of news, still do a lot and they deserve all the possible respect, even if this cannot change the concert situation.

Do you know that some Italian bands are in contact with Death In June? Do you think it's a way to feel important and have a 'curriculum'?
I don't know. With Douglas, that once thanked and no more, we had a decent mail relationship but this has decreased in time. But I say that Douglas doesn't accept easily this "copying" and if an Italian band should realize a Death In June cover is better to ask before to him, you know he is quite angry.

What do you think of the current moment of the band of Douglas Pierce? Is it, in your opinion, in a decreasing phase or he is however a great?
They remain great even if to release some 45 rpm so priced, for example, it's in the same moment a capitalization on but also a way to survive. I don't agree at all what is happening to Current 93: too much editions of the same tracks, different labels, to follow them is impossible, I would say excessive, it's a way to lose the 'artistic' estrous and begin to think about other...

Do we have, in your opinion, a mature and valid scene in Italy?
The scene in Italy is quite alive, there is a new gothic and electronic wave full of promises, it seems to me similar to 77-80. I hear almost all the bands, the most possible, and I like several things.

Who is your music direct to apart the audience present at the concerts?
To those sicked people, at home, at night, that feel abandoned. We would like to enter in the houses of who suffers, understand them, speak with them, we are not the public assistency of course but at least we are able to understand who feels bad in this world.

I appreciate each your CD also for the graphic. I think that the use you do of the 'cemetary' and funerary symbols is beautiful while many other bands, so-called gothic, use these pictures with bad results. How do you choose these photos?
We choose all together as well as all together go in cemetery to shoot, especially outside Parma. The most beautiful, for example, we shot in Milan and Vienna, a city I love and that I often visit: since '80 ahead almost every year I visited Austria!

From your biography emerges the period you worked with John Fryer. What do you remember of those years and how did you meet him?
I remember a good period in general, almost with everyone, those of the This Mortal Coil area and especially John. It's nice to work with him, he is a good electronic machines programmer, also old, and gives trust to the musician. For us it was a case because we were 'allocated' for Conny Plank, but, as you probably know, he died and we remained without producer.

What impression do you have when you remember the first time you took a musical instrumental in your hands? You were funny, sure to play good, disappointed, happy... How did it begin, then, everything?
It was very funny, I played a guitar just to say. I was unable to play, I have the refusal for learning and I thought I never would have become a good musician...

What does it remain inside you, today, of the Joy Division?
All of us listen to them very much, for us they are an 'obsession', in the new album there is a version of The Eternal... Swans too make us crazy then all the others, from Ultravox to Sparks, from Metro to Krisma, just a bit of all.

When two years ago your first and unfortunatly short interview on the past Dusk Memories was published many were impressed by the psychiatric hospital episode: do you want to tell us what you remember of the time?
It's a black period of my life, a true thing that happened from '75 to '80 and, unfortunatly, is happening again. Since one year I'm in treatment and I knew people of every kind. It's incredible, it's difficult to describe the things I saw. Well, the music doesn't express anything, "Solaris" (the new double CD noa) expresses this condition a bit but not, maybe, a complete idea of the problem. We know sicked people and I say, with no presuntion, that maybe the music can be a therapy, it can act on the sicked people. At musical level I'm hallucinated and I think that I will begin soon to orientate toward the condition of unrealization, I mean the opposite of realizing...

Which are your favorite Kirlian records?
I like all of those since '91 ahead, I don't support anymore those before. I did a bit of all, from pop to dark, from experimental to the song, but now Kirlian Camera is another thing... Paranoia, death, anguish, panic attacks, loneliness and 150' of madness: this is our new record!

Which wave would you choose between Expressionism and Decadentism?
The Expressionism maybe is more familiar, it's a sharper and more multiformed wave. I'm a romantic and I want balance, I would be only little clouds and angels, maybe... the Decadentism maybe is a bit more bourgeois, isn't it?

How are the new compositions proceeding? Would we listen to something new of Kirlian soon?
After "Solaris" we will do other things and there will be surprises also in the line-up: Ivano Bizzi, ex PFM, is already helping us at the keyboards as well as Ronko of Bel Am that will do something with us. The only new effective member, however, is just Nancy Appiah: percussions, keyboards and second voice.

How was born the live show of Kirlian? Which are the reasons that push you to use some effects on stage?
We don't have any live show and we never had problems to issue a live show. Tonight, for example, we will project a short movie of Leni Riefenstahl, the German director that already did "Olimpia", inspired to the olympic games. It's a nazist propaganga, with pictures of Hitler, and we will project it even if we know which could be the audience reaction. What we force to transmit is the concept that the music comments the pictures and not vice versa, and projecting a such movie doesn't mean to be nazist of course... In the past, for example, we projected pictures from Bosnia, but with no crying children! I like very much, it's true, the provocation of the RAF, Badermainhoff and company, I'm a fan of them and I don't deny this but from here to label me there is a wide space. I like the innete provocators, I don't want to realize a show around the humanity dramas, it's just this what I would like to the people understand. It's a thing that we always did, even if with amatorial movies and transmitting unreleased things, as police assault, fights...

Would you have to like to receive some questions about something I didn't ask for?
No, you asked for everything, really...

Davide Morgera

English translation: Adalberto Orrigo - 15.12.2004