Ed ecco il podcast e la traduzione in inglese della stessa per gli amici anglofoni... Buona lettura e buon ascolto!
Non perdetevi i Garden Wall dal vivo questa sera al Bloom di Mezzago con gli altri gruppi della Lizard, come viene specificato nel corso dell'intervista!
Nel corso della puntata di UP! (Radio Onde Furlane) di questa sera, condotta da Nichy D'Andrea, verranno proposte alcune interviste registrate domenica scorsa al PNBox a Miss Xox, Gian Maria Accusani, Paolo Parigi e Stefano Basso. Come al solito l'orario e' 19-21, sui 90.00mhz oppure in streaming da
www.ondefurlane.eu
UKN: ...
As I already announced before we have Alessandro Seravalle from Garden Wall on the phone with us... Can you hear me?
AS: Not much... But I can hear you!
UKN:
OK, so let me check these tools... Tell us about "Assurdo"'s concept...
AS: The thing is pretty complex. In truth, "Assurdo" is the third chapter of a trilogy that started with "Forget the Colours" and continued with "Towards the Silence". The three albums are tied musically and conceptually. Basically the main idea is that if you want to reach silence (and when I'm talking about silence I mean something close to Cioran's concept of melodic silence) you need to use (what I call) "rhetoric traps to capture atoms of truth" like hyperboles, oxymorons, all issues that concern the perspective of paradox and in a way absurd... By the way the song that sums up the ten tracks (that follow each other without interruptions) takes its name from a sentence by Guido Ceronetti, a great Italian wise person, that says "who surrenders wins", something that sounds really absurd but that was perfect to simplify the philosophical path (to use a high sounding word) that Garden Wall have started since the "Foget the Colours" period.
UKN:
Right, the path you've taken is becoming more and more complex, how are your fans/listeners responding to this musical and lyrical evolution?
AS: There is no doubt that if you want to perfectly understand the Garden Wall universe you need to check the lyrics, "the other half of the sky", half of the whole matter... I think reactions are even better than what we expected, especially when you think that an element that was predominant in the two previous records, that is an extremely aggressive variety of rock, has been melted with many different instances like electronica, jazz, ethnic music, classical progressive rock and my soft spot, which is contemporary music, XX century classical music that is. So much so that someone like you was talking about "panmusicalism", a definition I really like.
UKN:
Yeah, I realized from the very first listen that there's a bit of everything, there are no barriers of any kind, one can hear that you appreciate music from every angle, this does you honor compared to other bands that try and do that but with "absurd" results...
AS: I thank you! Another cardinal concept about the music that animates the Garden Wall project is some kind of awareness about the death of pure genres. It is very sterile to insist on pure genres according to me. Search for contamination between genres is much better, but it must be filtered through your own personality. There should be 360 degrees music, giving it back after a process of personal elaboration...
UKN:
You really can do that. We find some electronica meeting classic prog rock, although talking about classical prog rock at this point sounds like an insult in your respect, since your musical proposition is so wide and definitions become unimportant...
AS: It's a matter of digestion too, it needs to be digested! I really listen to an awful lot of music, I'm "omnivorous" in that respect and digest everything. Of course influences come out every now and then, it's inevitable, but I really think that our main weapon is that we cannot be linked to other musical situations, or maybe we can be linked to something only slightly, you can hear some influence at some point but then 30 seconds later it's not like that anymore... What's important is to homogenize the whole matter... We were talking about the digestion effect before and that evokes less pleasant things (laughs)...
UKN:
(laughs) Yes, it's that time of the day by the way... Do you want to talk about the rest of the line up?
AS: Absolutely! Besides me, my brother Gianpietro Seravalle, aka GPS, who is right here as we speak deals with electronic percussion, Ivan Moni Bidin is on drums, William Toson on basses of various shape and number of strings and our guitar hero Raffaello Indri. A lot of guests were added on the record to this essential line up, about ten people like Massimo De Mattia on flute, Simone D'Eusanio on violin, Pietro Sponton on percussion and vibraphone, Jacques Centonze on percussion, Andrea Fontana on percussion too, Cristian Rigano played a few unforgettable synth solos, Alessandro Bertoni plays piano on a track, Giorgio Pacorig played a few things with us, so a lot of beautiful people! The idea was checking how all these musicians would have interacted between each other, out of their usual circuit, with this musical artistic entity called Garden Wall!
UKN:
Although I don't like the word, do you think that the "ethnic" component in your music came out partially from these musicians or is it something you feel inside in any case?
AS: Well, I guess, although it's kind of rhetorical to say that, we live on the border between the latin, the germanic and the slavic world, so in some way, maybe even subconsciously it must have come out... I know what I need to do in certain harmonic situations with the guest of the moment, like for example on the song "Vacuum Fluctuation" where you can hear a violin bravura, a cadence by D'Eusanio that converged into the main theme and that's his warhorse... Or Cristian Rigano's funky solos, that's what he does best... It's nice to get the musicians to play in a different context, they had fun anyway and took advantage of their great musicality...
UKN:
Vacuum Fluctuation is in the background right now by the way... Can I ask you how are you preparing the future live shows?
AS: This is the situation: we've never dealt with electronics before, but if we want to reproduce the complexity of this work live... Since it is multi-layered, there are several levels of sound within it... We'll have to use prerecorded sounds, my brother will take care of that... Therefore we're starting to rehearse in a different way, we were not used to that but it's pretty fascinating... There'll be room for live electronics too anyway, so every concert will be different, at least partially, from the previous and the next one. We'll play at [our label] Lizard Records 15th Anniversary Festival (
http://www.lizardrecords.it/) at Mezzago's Bloom near Milan, on December 2nd, that will be a nice occasion, all the bands from the Lizard roster will be there, NichelOdeon, Sciarada, a new incarnation of the band Area with Tofani, Tavolazzi and Calloni... It will be very interesting.
UKN:
I suppose Area are one of your favorite bands from what I gather...
AS: Area are still nowadays an avant-garde band, just listening to their records from the seventies you can realize that, their mix of jazz and electronic elements is incredible... Then there's Demetrio Statos' voice, an extraordinaire singer... I think my vocal approach is not as technical as his was but what I'm trying to do a little bit is to throw away the "nice way" of singing to try and sing in a "true" way, trying to capture and interpolate and create a "short-circuit" between the lyrical element (the lyrics I wrote before) and the mood of the moment... All the vocal parts are definitely improvised, lyrics are there but there's nothing ready, I sung everything as it was coming, without paying attention to aspects tied to the "nice singing". I call these "heartfelt missions".
UKN:
So what we're hearing about "Assurdo" is one of many possible variations and depend on your mood at that moment?
AS: Yes, this is definitely true about the voice but it's also true about mixing, the record is built on layers so a radically different mix would have given a profoundly different result. I won't say that you wouldn't recognize the song but maybe something close... If you move what's in the background to the front and vice versa you'd get some amusing surprises, it would be very interesting to do that and see what happens. An "absurdity"!
UKN:
Or you could do what Flaming Lips did a few years ago when they published that record ("Zaireeka", ed's note) in 6 CDs (and of course it was 4 CDs not 6... ed's note again) that required playing the CDs simultaneously... But it was really engaging...
AS: Yes, really complex... But it'd be nice (although money gets in the way) to release all the "open" tracks, download them on Pro-Tools or stuff like that, and you'd be able to mix them and create your personal copy of "Assurdo"
UKN:
So are there no dates in our region at the moment...?
AS: Well, in our region it's always difficult, I don't want to start a controversy but cover bands here are predominant... Don't start me on that subject...
UKN:
You're preaching to the choir right now!
AS: It'd be time for artistic managers of venues to be on the side of people that play original music. It is also true that certain bands that nominally play "original" music most of the times are actually cover bands... Don't know... Dream Theater's clones for example... There are thousands of bands that try and play like them! Stop that! (Laughs) You always need a little controversy!
UKN:
Well I've talked about this repulsive "phenomenon" from these microphones...
AS: "Repulsive" is a good adjective...
UKN:
It's true! They take away room from creative bands that actually managed to play in venues almost everywhere until the late 90s...
AS: The situation is getting worse, compared to 10 or even 6-7 years ago...
UKN:
We try to appeal to these managers, we can't take this anymore since there's a lot of people that are fed up with listening to the same old cover bands and have to stay home because there are no alternatives!
AS: And what about that meaningless idea... Venue managers that ask you "How many people are you bringing with you"? Like your job is to be a promoter and not a musician... Venues should bring people, not musicians... Marquee in London is Marquee in London! King Crimson can play there or "Toni Demijohn" (as our former drummer used to say) and Marquee would always be full!!! Maybe then Tony Demijohn would be boo-ed by people... But we are lacking a venue that's always full around here, a place where you go and listen to a gig. We only have Deposito Giordani (a venue in Pordenone, ed's note) here and not much else... Can't think of other names right now...
UKN:
Yes, it's hard to think of a name right now. Let's hope the tide turns in the future, we're fed up!
AS: Right, we're fed up!
UKN:
OK, so our next commercial is almost ready, I ask you to announce the next number from Assurdo, choice is yours!
AS: Hard to pick, it feels like a dad... But OK, you can play the opening track at this point, "Iperbole"... An unusual start for a prog band, it's in 13/8...
UKN:
Thanks so much Alessandro, if you want to add something it's the right time to do that... Any link or address?
AS: You can find us on Myspace, Facebook, Reverbnation... Technology makes it easy to find us, so if there's someone that wants to listen to something different from the rest, just try and listen to Garden Wall, we're an original band, made up of trained musicians... So come look for us!
UKN:
And with a very long history! You've been playing together since the late 80s!
AS: Yes, the first album was release in 1993 but we got together around the late 80s, line-ups have changed a lot, I'm the only one left now but I've always tried to be surrounded by very good musicians, also because playing what I write is not really easy (laughs), the matter is rather complex!
UKN:
We know that! Well thanks again...
AS: Thank you and thanks Radio Onde Furlane listeners... Stay tuned, you need radio hosts that instead of talking about Laura Pausini's latest album talk about "musiche" (music in friulano, ed's note)... (laughs)
UKN:
Right (laughs)... Maybe you can come visit us in the near future and we can play a show together. You can bring your playlist, maybe one of the next Fridays...
AS: Absolutely! With pleasure! Just let me know and I'll be there!
UKN:
And here comes "Iperbole" after the next commercial... Have a nice weekend!
AS: Thanks a lot! Stay tuned!
Profilo Facebook dei Garden Wall
http://www.gardenwallband.com/
Ed ecco il podcast e la traduzione in inglese della stessa per gli amici anglofoni... Buona lettura e buon ascolto!
Steve Hackett has a way of making you feel not like a journalist but as a friend invited to his own home, sharing a cup of tea on the sofa... I met Steve before his concert in my home town of Spilimbergo, on August 1, we talked for half an hour about his new album Beyond the Shrouded Horizon, that will see the light of day on September 27th; we also talked about his previous record, about Genesis and about his perception of the Folkest festival, which he masterfully closed with his set. To sit on that couch with him inside the former Cinema Castello, right in the Duomo square was like a dream come true... How many times had I walked or driven around it, with his or Genesis music blaring out of my stereo or headphones since I was a kid? And there he was, the perfect English gentleman, answering my questions, my curiosities. We would have talked more but other guests were waiting and soundcheck was incumbent on him and the band. Needless to say the performace was flawless, a set that saw him go back in time and play a lot of Genesis numbers like the Hackett/Collins penned Blood on the Rooftops, Firth of Fifth, Watcher of the Skies or a more experimental version of Los Endos but also a good selection from his more recent albums (the nostalgic Golden Age of Steam for example) and a lot of his own classics (he opened with Everyday but also played the melancholic Spectral Mornings, the epic The Steppes and Ace of Wands, or Clocks - The Angel of Mons that closed the whole set). The show was electric, with his only concession to acoustic numbers being the obvious Horizons and the introduction to Blood on The Rooftops. Gary O'Toole (his drummer) sang the Genesis tunes with a good delivery, Roger King was his usual right arm, Rob Townsend played sax and flute with great skill and the eye-catching Nick Beggs played fretless bass, Rickenbacker bass (who does that remind you of?) and some guitar (his acoustic solo was acclaimed by the whole audience)... I need to thank the Folkest festival organisation and Vania Santi from Blue Sky Promotion for giving me the opportunity to meet and friendly chat with Steve. Keep up the good work!
