Resurrecturis web-zine, 09/2004

With 'Invisible Front.2005' Kirlian Camera signs one of the most beautiful and inspired work of their long artistic carrier, leaving back that unbearable emotive tension that characterized their recent production and opening to new musical horizons, turned to the research of extremely quiter moment, especially if comparered with the previous 'Still Air' and 'Unidentified Light'. As we will learn from the words of Angelo Bergamini and Elena Fossi in this interview, the sensation of internal quiet perceived during the listening of this album is the result of a musical expression that only changed form, assuming "softer" and more harmonious characteristics than the past, but the rage, the pain and the disquieting are the same of a time, those ones that always accompany Kirlian Camera daily...

Hello Angelo, hello Elena. We would like to begin by congratulating with you for 'Invisible Front.2005', surely one of the most beautiful album written by Kirlian Camera ever! In this last year its release seemed always imminent, but your admirers had to wait so much before listen to this work. Which are the reasons of a such so long creation time?
Elena>> First of all thanks for your warm reception! To be honest it has passed a bit since the release of 'Still Air', but sincerly we didn't have the time to be aware of this. This because the planet Kirlian Camera is now surrounded by two new satellites, Stalingrad and Siderartica. Of course by tripling the work, time went ouf of our control. Moreover, in the moment we were managing both of the new project, we moved four times. No, it's not our favorite hobby, as someone could think at this point! There was just a bit of confusion in these last four years... But now we are like new, fresh, perfumed and... completely dumbs!

The sensation we perceive listening to 'Invisible Front.2005' is a never-seen brightness, just if the album would be an opening towards musically softer moments comparing the strong emotive tension that characterizes your past production. What has it changed in your personal sphere, so much to condition you music in such evident way?
Elena>> Unfortunatly what seems apparent softness hides an exasperation acuter than in past in some ways. I think that people like us has this bad luck in the life: passing the years the young rage usually disappears, while it turns into a deep, real, concrete discouragement, but, even bigger bad luck, you feel the will to fight with more fury than before and every little evil hurts your heart like the drill of the dentist. But let's say that, if the lyrics are dramatically full of rage, pain and disquieting, it's true too that the musical form is softer and more harmonious. And maybe the paradox is just this: we wished to do something to make us breath, something that we would like to listen, to relax our heart, though keeping in our souls the stregth we need to proceed in our dreams. We wished that this album were similar to a rose, including the thorns (and that it stings who has no grace in touching!).

Which is your personal interpretation of the title? Is it possible to glimpse a tension toward an imminent future in it?
Elena>> This album incarnates the possibility of a travel with no return, toward a place where the dimensional space becomes mere illusion of the terrestrials. The point of no return is remarked by an imaginary line (then between the dimension and the non-dimension), that determines the end of the nature of the man and the hope of a new beginning of existance, where the border between science and madness would be worth less. Metaphorly it reflects a travel toward the reaching of the higher and nobler part of ourselves, deprived of the customs and the daily routine that heat the heart of the ignorants and instead fed by honour and loyalty, especially toward ourselves. It's a travel for discovering the truth, without who there cannot be any victory for the human beings. Thus, it becomes a sort of offering for the most darings, to face a path never done before, with the last intention to discover if the invisible front could be really crossed.

Angelo, your singing parts are really more numerous and your interpretation is the most mature and "musical" that you ever did. When did you feel the wish to partecipate in a so active way to the vocal parts?
Angelo>> I didn't program such thing, to be honest. Elena insisted. Her closeness conditioned me positively tuning up my voce a bit unintentionally that, if it were scandalous before, now it's a bit more digestible.

Elena's voice seems perfectly "suitable" to a typical Kirlian Camera style, much more than it happened for 'Unidentified Light' and 'Still Air'. Was it a suitable process absolutely unconscious or, at the opposite, did you research it?
Angelo>> I left her white paper, while before I didn't allow her "take off", due to the compositions she has to sing on... but I believe she can explain better...
Elena>> I really love the records you mentioned, especially 'Still Air', but I must admit that in that time we didn't know very well and I wasn't unable to watch at the development of the tracks in object, so my main work was to interpretate them, trying to understand the best way to do it. Moreover they were tracks mainly based on the musical part, where it was right to not use the voice as the protagonist, but simply it had to match well with the instruments just to reach a particular amospheric structure. In 'Invisible Front' I was able to follow every composing moment and to sing melodies we worked together on. And then I allowed myself to use "my" voice!

Like Elena, the female figures that in past accompanied Angelo are remarked by their character and strong personality. What do you think of the stereotyped role that the woman assumes in some musical scenes, where her figura is associated only to the sweetness and to a "sexy" image?
Angelo>> If a woman is nice in some way... then she could also act in "hard" movies that it's not a problem for me, because there will be nothing vulgar, as I don't think that the concept of "eroticism" is a raw thing or rough, in the opposite... The problem could happen due the fact the many women are not really nice and they are unable to offer anything sensual. Too many ass-faces, ignorant, annoying... they seem clams in knickers with the microphone to fluter like gooses. The fact is that some of them believe to be fascinating and wonderful, so... men believe it too, AH, AH, AH!!!
Elena>> I don't thing absolutely anything, if I like the song, and if the operation is not too much... embarassing.

In this work more than ever we can strongly perceive the female component; from the picture in the cover, to the introduction of 'Nefertiti One', till the closing phrase of the booklet (Where men cannot live). Would you like to talk about this aspect?
Elena>> The beauty is the undiscussed protagonist of our metaphysical scenario, related to a strong sense of desperation to the record, of solitude, of loss. Beauty, then, as superior sensibility ready to sacrificate itself just to be distant from the bleakness, just to be not touched in any way. In this way the female nude of the cover has taken its form, in our opinion suitable to incarnate the fascination and the sensuality of the sacrifice dedicated to something it's correct to believe in. The idea of Nefertiti too, the Egyptian queen revered like a goddess through the centuries for her strong beauty and her irresistible fascination, it seems to us very proper. Moreover we wanted to underline the strict relationship between the beauty and the spirituality. It's not by case that in 'Nefertito One' the female corpse has 33 years in the moment of her death.

'K-Pax' is a track with a truly complex structure that seems distant from the typical Kirlian Camera compositive canons. What did you inspire for the composition of this beautiful song?
Angelo>> The title derives from a movie that only vaguely inspired the operation, just titled 'K-PAX'. It tells about a presumed alien that once descended into the Earth goes into a madhouse. It's not genial, this work, but however it gives a sense of universal tragedy. The lack of hope marks a work of KC for the first time, work projected in an only "otherwhere" possible future or over the terrestrial life, where the death is seen as a possible interlacement of places - some terrible and other not - where unusual in the "biological" reality dreams happen. Moreover there are some considerations about the "dead zones in the sky", truly frightening areas for those who don't learn to respect them: also here, however, it exists a link with the concept of "hereafter", in some way. Many said that this record is often "dreamy" and I don't want to contest totally this vision, but I could also say that my opinion is almost opposite: this record maybe speaks about a dream, but it's very, very disquieting dream. So much disquieting that you bring it inside after the awakening, signal that maybe it's not a dream. Hidden among the sounds of 'K-PAX' and all the album there is the awareness of an... announced pain, that seems sometimes too much big to support.

The lyrics of 'Kobna Dob' are Serbian, which is the reason you chose to write the lyrics in this language? What did you link to Serbia and its culture?
Angelo>> We have some friends, or better "acquaintances" there, sometimes we exchange opininons about various topics with them. That place is fearfully "human", with all the disgust that derives for the few intelligent who live there, as usual everywhere... but this disgust makes be born reactions, sometimes... that are positive, that refuse foolish logics. The races can exchange their own cultures, to learn the mutual respect, but I don't believe they are ready yet to cohabit forcedly as some frenzy superficial person would like to. It would be amazing, but it's not reality and I don't believe it will be be soon. In generale the ex-Yugoslavia is an excellent mirror of the planet, the negative answer to too many accented and unresponsible hopes. The important thing is "not invading", until, I repeat, the mutual cultures will be gladly respected and apprecied, but now the only thing that these cohabitations offer is... the death. I don't accept to be considered racist, because the racists are those who hate "by principle" the other cultures and I... hate them, but I don't change what I said.

The limited edition of 'Invisible Front.2005' contains a bonus cd completely dedicated to the song 'Days to come', which special meaning has this song for you, just to decide to insert separatly comparing the album?
Angelo>> It's a song that I loved very much, written in 1999 for 'Unidentified Light', but both of Emilia and Barbara, in that time, rejected it to me and I didn't arrangied it very well, doing a very hybrid version, appeared on the 'Audacia Imperat!' sampler, record released in very few copies and then reprinted this year. I wished it was sung again and I wished that the music would be finally more in line with my/our feelings, so I made it listen to Elena and, as far as I'm concerned, now that track is absolutely one of my favorite among those ones written along the time. We wanted it appeared otherwhere, because the track-list was already compiled and it worked good in this way, for us, with no addition, so we sent the track to Trisol and we asked to present it to the audience, in the first 2000 copies. Fortunatly the label was enthusiastic and accepted the proposal. I think it's useless to do one hour of bad sounds just to make see that you give two albums at the price of one... We prefered to satisfy the true feelings and give five minutes of music that is absolutely not worse than the album, then... if somebody dislikes Kirlian Camera, beh, at that point he will love nothing of both of the things, so... he must go away from the balls, we have to work!

How were the collaborations with Lloyd James of Naevus and Jarboe born?
Angelo>> Lloyd already made a version - that we apprecied very much - of 'After Winter' of KC, so, after knowing him and understanding he is a person not commonly polite and kind, gifted by a nice vocal timbre and excellent English diction, we re-contacted him, asking for what he thought to collaborate... and the thing happened in a very intense and "felt" climate. Concerning Jarboe, I can say I don't know her very much, apart the solo records and the Swans' ones, that I like a lot. Let's say that it was a "natural" collaboration, from which another track was born, that will be released in remixed version later, on the next album.

Listening to 'Invisible Front. 2005' the impression is about an album able to overpass the musical borders within which Kirlian Camera commonly are labelled. At the end of the work, did you ever think to the chance that the album could be apprecied by a bigger audience than the usual one that follows you?
Angelo>> Yes, surely... and I wondered of it, because this was not intentional, as our only intention was to reach the maximum level of our possibilities concerning the heart, dedition and research. But I fear that this record, notwithstanding the good promotion done by Trisol, will sell only a bit more than a Kirlian Camera album of the past such as 'Eclipse' or 'Todesengel', because our "scenario" is not always very adequate to Kc and viceversa. In fact we move in a zone properer for Sopor Aeternus, L'Ame Immortelle and Christian Death, bands against which I have nothing to say, really, but that play milions of light-years different from us. KC moves in a "border zone" since always and this... returns very little. We don't claim for the sales, almost more than decent, but we know that some of our works are a bit "sacrified", notwithstanding all... Then, there is also the "political" topic that sabotaged us a lot, basing on stupid illations spread by hostile person to us, that took the help of powerful political formations and very "unaware", to say... nothing more.

Basing on the more than twenty years old Kirlian Camera experience within the musical environment, which is your opinion about the chance for an "underground" band to arrive to a major? Do you believe it could be a real advantage or rather than a deceptive goal?
Angelo>> It's an advantage for who creates contacts with powerful producers that think only to look for a proper band to work on at mass level, a band with no great quality, easily handy and operable and thirsty of exposure. Maybe the best thing is dedicate oneself to the self-production, if you are able to create music of good level, making distribuite by big names and, in the same time, selling your products at the concerts and in Internet. Sometimes to sell 1000 discs pays more than sell 100,000... then, if you can reach 10,000 alone or even to surpass... you can try to live, if there are not so many snipers around, AH, AH, AH!!!

Last question... Kirlian Camera and stage: how do you live this relationship?
Elena>> If one day they make us to play I will tell you!!!

Thanks Elena and Angelo for the time you dedicated us... the space is yours to conclude the interview as you better prefer...
Elena>> I won't ask you to buy in mass several copies of 'Invisible Front.2005', but to follow with attention the evolution/involution of the world. There is so much to examine... And if one day, looking at the sky, you would see to fall something toward you, it could be other else than the shit of a pigeon...

Roberto e Laura

Taken from: http://www.resurrecturis.net

English translation: Adalberto Orrigo