Kaos Kulture web-zine, 06/2004
LOST IN SPACE
A river in the flood. Of words. Here is summarized
this interview. Sorry. More than an interview, a cold interview, it was
a nice talking. One of those that happen in full relax, smoking a good cigar,
that's very chic and careless, and maybe drinking a good red wine. Between
the serious (much) and the fun (equally much). A climate all not formal.
I couldn't ask for better. And as usual Angelo Bergamini has been an
intelligent person, sly and in the same time sagacious and thorny enough.
Enough to launch stab. Veiled but not so much. The more instictive part
of Kirlian Camera balanced by a careful and reflective Elena Fossi, on whom
I talked about more musical matters. No long rigmarole. No delirium. Only
disarming consciousness and lucidity for strength and easiness. I've read
and read again their words. Words capable to create a parallel dimension
and totally torn away to ours. As the music, all in all. Magic?
Suggestion? Maybe magic suggestion? Maybe. The word to Angelo and Elena.
Welcome to the front...
As per consolidated "ritual" I give the welcome to
you, Angelo, and Elena on Kaos Kulture. What did you do in this break of
time passed, not so long, to be honest, between the release of "Still Air"
and the last (masterpiece) work "Invisible Front 2005"?
ANGELO - they were very strange and intense years, little explainable... I feel
to live a dream after the death.
ELENA - Concerning the musical topic, the mini album "Absentee" followed
immediately "Still Air", but this happened in the late 2000. After we
didn't take the classic pause of reflection, but we installed in the Kirlian
family other two creatures: Stalingrad, project leaded by Angelo and me and
Siderartica, that I lead with the help of my brother Andrea and Andrea Savelli.
What happened us over the music in this time, maybe it's the most complicated
part for us, but I save you the weariness to listen to it!
Listening to the record and trying to "dissect it", I
noticed various references to the concept of "future": starting from the
"2005" present in the title, or the concept of space exploration (K-Pax,
the starship Nefertiti One), as well as references to the ancient Egpytian civilization,
Neverfiti, already further "over" herself for what concerns the astronomy and the
sciences; Nefertiti that reminds, if we want, also to an ativic concept of "sensuality"...
The last recent space missions on the ground of Mars, for example, have
influenced/stimulated your curiosity? It almost seems that you want to say us
that the future appears in some "sensual" way... What do you say about?
ELENA - Naturally we are VERY curious for everything regards the space explorations,
but there is not a real link between what is happening outside and what we want
talk about. The epoque we are living promises us so much in the field of technologic
avantgarde but decays the individual sense of hope; I mean that the humans can
live as great lords, thinking to have the right weapons for any occasion, but
meanwhile it seems that a sense of sensibility misses just to allow us to
understand what a single person could be. This album represents a travel in the
cosmos towards the end of the man as happens in nature. Its very anti-ground mood
gives room to sensations that we find so little in the true life. Humanity must be
able to change. So we liked to imagine the existance of places distant from materiality,
where the beauty intended as superior sensibility and sensuality may emerge,
absolutely opposited to terrestrial animality. The same album cover summarizes
this concept through a female nude consecrated to the desperation of who is
excluded by everything and he is forced to exclude everything.
Is it right to consider Nefertiti (One) like a sort of
"female archetype", sensual but in the same time hi-tech oriented?
Maybe it's just my mental "travel", but I found this concept very strong...
concept summarized in music due to the voice of Elena, sensual, in fact, but
strong in the same time...
ELENA - It's not by case that the starship travels in our invisible front with this
name. There are rare women that, like Nefertiti, own so much fascination, beauty
and elegance and for this reason in Egypt she was so much adored along the time
like a goddess. Our starship contains the corpse of a beautiful woman, chosen as
sacrifical figure of the human history. Personally I think that there is a strong
link between the physical beauty and the spiritual one. Nefertiti One shows the
body of one of the most beautiful woman, that symbolizes in the same time the
christian spirituality. There is a link between this woman and Christ (the age
of the woman at the moment of her death is the same of Jesus'). I have the
sensation that there is no space on the earth for this kind of beauty and that
this must be carried as an heavy bundle, because it disturbs anyone wants to
crap everywhere. And I believe that the sensuality could frighten who is unable
to manage it, so there are lots of troglodyte pigs dribbling in front of tits
and ass, but they are so distant from the fascination and the sensuality at all.
(How we couldn't agree... noJoylessKK)
One of the most beautiful and "strong" piece of "Invisible
Front 2005" is surely K-Pax. K-Pax, I say this for who
doesn't know, is a movie telling the story of a supposed alien, coming from the
planet K-Pax, in
fact, of the constellation of the Lira. A psychiatry is not so sure that he is
a real "green man", as he presumes that it's just a "very normal" case of schizophrenia...
Now, basing on this short introduction, is it possible to do a sort of metaphoric
parallelism between the idea of "unknown space" and the still unexplored zones of the
human brain? Maybe is it this the "dead zone in the sky"? I mean, what that is still
unknown of the human psyche?
ELENA - The dead zone in the sky represents a dimensional absence, a place
against any terristrial logic of limited spaces, a place from where nothing returns,
fed by the memories of the souls. If somebody had the chance to see what is
considered science-fiction, or, simply hallucinative states, then
we could think to the dead zone in the sky like a sort of border between the
science and the madness, the threshold over the impossible. But put attention,
we know that the human usage of the brain is very poor, I remember that we
use only 25% of our celebral capacity. So, the parallelism of the dead zone in
the sky and the part of the brain not used is naturally born. There is only
a dark barrier to be overpassed. To open a closed door, over it there could be
the truth or a ravine, striving to discover our real moods or adapt oneself
to the current way to think. To learn to recognize our eyes themselves or to find
every time a new alibi that motivates or even justifies our existance...
One thing is sure: the front is invisible only for who persists to not see it!
If what we just said is ture, then is it correct to
consider "Invisible Front 2005" like a sort of "double travel"? In the cosmos
and in the human mind?
ANGELO - Yes, a travel that seems with no return, but not for this without a
destination: in fact the point is not "to return back" and not even "to die" at
all the costs. The return to the Earth is poorly considered by this record
and by the general concept this music belongs to.
In a mail you told that this record is the result of
a concrete collaboration with Elena, not like in past, when Kirlian Camera
was pratically an one-man band... How did you feel to mix
your sensibility, your taste CONCRETELY with those ones of another person
and in which way this "sinergy" gave life to "Invisible front 2005"?
ANGELO - I always needed to work in a "group", because I don't believe to
be able to give the best, alone: I end doing too much confusion and having
anguish. KC was born as nucleus, not as individual project; of course, I
wrote the 90% of the compositions, but I felt the presence of the others
as very active reality. We talked a lot, we made plans together... But since
about 1983 this happened very sporadically, till it never happened anymore.
I had very good collaborators and also very interested and involved, but I
believe they thought that I work better in my own, closed in the bunker where
I live or where I place the instruments every time. Instead I need somebody
to share continuosly the ideas with, researches and discussions, a pulsing
intelligence in an educated person, that makes me not tired, but also
able to interact with my mind in a total way, absolute. It seems impossible.
Instead I experienced it now, in the last three years. Elena interacts with
my thoughts and with my discussions as a flow with continuous joint. It's
even surprinsing for us too that today we should be used to this, to such
condition. One of the two begins to think naturally about something and the
other, by case, answers to him... without that such topic would have been
absolutely begun or had a minimal reference in progress. I would not call it
telepathy, but it's undoubtlessly stranger, as situation. Elena is
incredible. She is hardly readable, for the unknown: you can understand the
general spirit, but from there you cannot think to have in front of you an
alien able of such elaborations and passions... MOreover, just the passionate
side, is very, very present in her, as well as in me. To keep two similar
psychopaths is a problem for ourselves, so we workly hard on "the noble
art of rationality", where we'll reach the purest madness, due to the lack
of other "sparring partners" or interlocutors...
Is "Invisible Front 2005" a "difficult" album to understand?
ANGELO - It is a very listenable record, opened to a good sales success, in my opinion.
But I saw that, among so many congratulations received, somebody has remained
vaguely disturbed. "Somebody" doesn't forgive us to exist anymore. We challenged
too much the common sense of the death (of a band) and creativeness ("make three
records and then repeat yourself and... this only if you are good"). Indeed,
it's incredible to say, but many don't appreciate this. KC could realize the most
beautiful record of the world, but, to "feel alive" some bleak people must try to
demolish it. Patience, their life will be demolished. If this band would die soon,
all of them, all of those that sink the knife in the wrong moment will have serious
problems. It is not a curse, but a reality. We can make happen particular events,
even to kill with the mind, with neither movement nor talking, not asking for
external help, even if we don't want at the end. In some 'zones' we can learn
many secrets, along the time.
"[...] It's a record that recalls to the mind the cryptic
frames of a movie like "2001 - A space odyssey". It's a record that recalls me
the space, in fact. Among dying starts and black holes that eat everything.
Interstellar vampires with wide open mouth. Hunger of life. Its disquieting quietness.
Its heavy silence. It's astral chill[...]". This, summarizing, what I "felt"
listening to "Invisible Front 2005". This "sci-fi" aftertaste is
due just to my impression or do you really want to communicate a sense of
cold "emptiness", of sadness and loneliness that, usually, we associate,
at least at a pure symbolic level, to an unknown dimension like the space?
ANGELO - Yes, the cold emptiness is a liberated concept, or also disquieting,
it could cause panic. You could also lose your mind, in some situations.
The connection level between the cosmic space and the madness is high, also
because the "unknown" factor creates panic, sometimes, we know. At a certain point,
just for magic, the sense of interior/exterior infinite enters in somebody
like point of start and leaving from the condition exclusively physical or spiritual.
You can be neither spiritual nor physic, you must be really strong, responsible,
eternal. In the space there is no dream or nightmare, not more or not less than here.
There are the nightmares of the "normal" men to make "abnormal" an alien or a
planet or a galaxy. We must avoid these nightmares, because before or after we will
face some some situations: it's better to be a bit ready or at least "disposed",
even if being not new-agers at all the costs...
Still a label change... Kirlian Camera are great "ballbreakers",
or there is soomething wrong in the policy of the various labels you recorded for?
You had always a stormy and tormented relationship with your labels...
ANGELO - Mah... the fact is that many manage badly the money that have and the
rethoric "sex-drug-rock" is a concrete obstacle to build something lasting.
We had a manager/producer that, once he sold very good, decided to bid on horses,
to have sport cars, to alchool and bought a swimming pool... Meanwhile, he forgot
to pay the bands (Wow... noJoylessKK). It's useless to act as rockers and burping
loud from the convertible car, because it is not alternative. It's not an
alternative not paying the bands. It's not an alternative calling Oderso Rubini,
being celebrated as the father-godfather of the 80s Wave and never
paying anybody... spits, they are needed. And names, sometimes, unfortunatly,
even if I'm used to be silent. How much I was mute, how much I "covered" incredibly
unresponsible actings, just to avoid to follow the first sensation! It could be
possible to change label again, maybe. I'm a bit tired to run behind money that
never arrive, to pay instead of gain, to be afraid to have nothing to survive
(and not for this to be so intelligent to put away from this difficult way).
It could be possible to make KC as a totally autonomous entity, definitively.
For the moment we will remain with Trisol, then we will see.
And now what will you do? A very intense live activity awaits for
you... will you have the time to take care of your side-projects?
Speaking about this, should we expect a return to the cold Stalingrad or
"Court martial" is to be considered an unique work?
ELENA - I would definy Stalingrad as integrating part of our thoughts, instead
that a real project. So it cannot end, in this way... But, it's important that we
dedicate to it in the right moment, that, I believe, is not distant. We have
some idea for a next eventual album, related to a more "moving" and powerful climate
than, we just hope to do it well, at least for ourselves!
Let's talk again of Stalingrad. "Court martial" is
a record that musically (just for the "Morriconiana" style in primis) is
different from the other KC productions, but for what concerns the
"sensations" it keeps a sort of umbilical cord with the sensibility you
are used to express with KC... is my analysis correct?
ELENA - The sensibility related to Stalingrad derives from an unique matrix
naturally, even if there are some differences to be considered, in relation
with KC. Let's say that with Stalingrad we lose more to some sensations
despite their forms, that are not totally cured. It's maybe the more
"childish" part that we put in game for this project, a bit more careless
about the realization of a thing, but not totally careless, instead,
there is lots of heart and less more... (if masterpiece is a little thing...
noJoylessKK)
"[...] No, the stimulations are not comparable to time ago anymore,
in fact they INCREASED!!!! And this, despite the fact many years have passed.
Now it's very, very difficult to not get worse, more hard than being original.
I like this, because I consider it as a true stimulation, not exactly like a
challenge against our skills, but like a moment of maximum clearness and
concentration, even if due the not "usual" life we have (unfortunatly!) everything
gets complicated, for what concerns concentration, always more difficult:
even better![...]" You answered in this way during our first chat, Angelo,
when I asked you if the stimulations to continue the musical voyage taken with
KC had remained the same in time. Really there never was "something" that
made you think "Stop, I leave everything"?
ANGELO - Yes, a few weeks ago, for the first time and hardly. I believe
we realized the best record, now. I repeat this to myself continuosly,
because I believe so (You are not alone to think in this way, dear Angelo...
naJoylessKK). So, if it's in this way, this album must sell, it must be
helped by you must do, it must reach ears and hearts. But... it's not even
the reaching of a good success, the "salvation" element of Kirlian Camera.
I believe that this band has been maltreated too much, even if loved by many.
I don't accept this negativity coming from people totally UNABLE to speak about
any entity; unable to manage any psychology. I'm not tired to play, but I'm
VERY tired of the musical scene, even I don't partecipate to parties, meetings,
and ridiculous artists in general. I don't believe in the art, just nothing.
I believe in the heart and in the strength, in the justice and, sometimes,
even in the patience, but... here they abused of my patience. I see too many
grotesque faces, around... of people who listens to music for a reason I don't
care, and I don't accept it. Too many judges, less culture. Too many books and
less attention... to the teachings, even if there were a lot of them. I gave
the maximum of my strengths and my concentration, the maximum faith in the
reasearch of the purity and I don't want to stop... but it's possible that
I will decide to not give these things anymore to people that I don't estimate.
Or a big audience or a stricted and exclusive number of listeners: we are not
used to compromises. I don't care to sell 10000 copies, because I know that
we would be able to sell many, many more... then, I'm satisfied the same selling
2000 or 1000, but to who I prefer...
A question for Elena. How do you work near to a person
like Angelo Bergamini? You can say everything... he will never know all
this "gossip", eheheeh!
ELENA - I don't like to disturb all the readers with all the sweet adjectives
that could be out from here. Morever I would need about forty pages for this!
I will only say that is a privilege to work with him and I feel lucky for
the chance I had to know him very well. But don't tell it to him, then
he moves and instead of his usual ass-face he will have the
Bambi's eyes! (A tender person, all in all... noJoylessKK).
This is a question that I ask often, especially in the
last time, to people I'm interviewing, just to understand and interpretate
what the people think... After the recent slaughter in Madrid the problem of
terrorism is again in on the crest of the wave, or better, on the crest of
the wave of mass-media. It seems that the common impression is
the following: "we are all in the center of the sight". Many, I mean all the
"pacific" front, indicates the United States of America as the main guilty
of this situation: a sort of bear that, to feed of honey, threaded mouth and
legs into a wasps' nest... with the consequence that we can image. After the
eleventh of September it was almost obvious to wait for a "strong" reaction
of the USA, that among solidariety certificates (or faithfulness to Atlantic
Pact, as you prefer...), gathered friends, relatives, allies, to make a nice
"pic-nic" in Iraq. In this point we return to the current
situation. Spain will retire its troops from Iraq, while other governments
decided to not get frighten by the bombs (of course the economic interests
are very stronger than some hundred of deads...). Which is your opinion?
ANGELO - I don't think to guess much, because the "secret war" is the most
important. There is an "invisible front" too there, even if it's not the same
we quote recently, or better, it's not 'only' that. The reasons and the
interests remain visible, but the war is an important vent factor for all the
persons that would get crazy or would be criminalized if they followed their
instincs in peace time. The power belongs to the strongers and the strongers
never deny the power to their "strong" hangers-on or supposed so.
A paratrooper is not "a strong", but he will try everything to prove that
he is, till make him killing literally to have an identity. The same and more
is valid for the kamikazes of every nation, they are not martyrs, ma (sub)object
without will and to live they need to imagine themselves glorified by an ugly
nation and by an inexistant god. In fact God is justice and justice cannot fit
with "war", or better with "aggression". Never. You can also become nervous
sometimes, but organizing a conflict is not question of being nervous, but
premeditation. The war is a topic less passionful of what it seems, at least
from the side of who organizes it. Let's say that who organizes a war has a
different concept of passionate nature: the "war organizer", then, is able to
long and natural meditation pauses. The pleasure of meditation could include
sometimes the use of alchool, but a drink lasts much, much time. The true
warlord is often a sacral person, sad, that denies himself to the life too,
till the monk's masochism threshold. Masochism who hides also sadist orientation,
of course. The war unites sadism, competition and lack of identity in a perfect
mix to be given to people and overworked by who has to take part of the world.
And then... also who has to take part of the world is not exactly the puppet
showman, but another sadist and perverse being, part of a society. But that
society we will call 'secret society' now. Every society has its tastes.
The war of Bush and Allies remains domain of the purest segret hidden in the
suggestions of the Society which belongs to, as well as Hussein's one, Laden
and so on. These leaders of states or tribes are people "that were not happy
to interact one with the others", that dislikes one with the others along
the time, whose Societies don't like to stay together or, at least, whose
sub-societies live hardly close notwithstanding they could have
also an invisible common flag. We could talk about the Illuminates, but here
everything gets complicated and it's better to talk about other deliriums,
AH, AH, AH!!!
End of transmission... something to add?
KIRLIAN CAMERA - we know that several things seem long rigmaroles, but...
after all we decided to satisfy (our) truth and... what we saw with our own eyes.
JoylessKK
Taken from: http://www.kaoskulture.com
English translation: Adalberto Orrigo - 02.12.2004