ItalianAndrea Gabriele’s office is on the ground floor of an anonymous building in the middle of nowhere which is Montesilvano. From the outside it does not show at all the activities taking place inside: it could be the office of a surveyor as an illegal chinese leather lab. Inside a world is packed and ready to explode. In a few square meters there are a hundred different musical instruments, amplifiers of all types and thousands of meters of cables, each with its jack. At the center of everything, like a pilot of a the spaceship Enterprise, there is Andrea. A few seconds is enough for him to play an ukulele or a moog, a bass or a piano, he is a versatile and refined, a composer in love with music. You can understand it by the way he talks of his musical projects, the experiences that led him to work anywhere with a lot of artists. This is interesting, because musicians enjoy this special privilege, they speak a universal language that brings them quickly in communication with people of different cultures and from more distant areas. This aperture is found in the ease with which Andrew talks about his work ranging from experimental music to club music. A free attitude, curious, always investigator and never superficial. Entering the Andrea’s world means immersing yourself in his thoughts and stories, in the strange, small, constant questions that animate his work, like this: “what is the solution of love?”. If you are interested, like us, to know the answer to the question all you have to do is to wait and hear the next Andrea’s work.
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What is your job?
I make music and everything that goes around. I do a lot of different things, both properly into the music, moving from experimental to disco music, and art, collaborating with other people, mainly artists and video artists.
Are there other activities that you carry on at the same time?
Since I have a family, I work three mornings a week as a programmer. I still hold closely my “back up” work. It’s a job like any otherr, just to have something guaranteed for the family.
Could you live only with music?
Yes, efforts are needed: I usually work in studio from 8 am to 7 pm, full time. I spend all day looking for new ideas, new projects to do, even for commercial projects, those that allow you to earn some money.
In your field, what brings money?
For me, personally, the commission for advertising, events, etc.., and copyrights. It would seem untrue but it is really so.
Does really exist this copyright thing?
Yes but it is made badly. It is totally unbalanced: there are few who earn a lot and many who do not earn anything. I gain something because, I do not know if it is luck or whatever, I met people who have allowed me to do certain jobs, such those for Radio RAI. And since I started to earn the SIAE does everything to put a spoke in the wheels … Incredible …
Do you make opening theme and jingles?
I do expecially backgrounds, that among other things you can’t listen to, because people speak above.
You’re a “backgrounder”?
Actually the official name is underscores, and is, among other things, what brings me more money. It’s strange, because in reality people do not even listen to them … feel them … maybe.
Is this frustrating?
No, it’s a job like any other, you make music that you do not really care much about. You make it for a particular purpose, for that specific program. They tell me the type of atmosphere they need and I do it.
What are the signs that they give you, something like “saucy tropical atmosphere with peaks of jazz but not too much…”?
The signs are always strange, much depends on the purpose and the context, I do music for commercials, events and so on. In general, however, when the customer comes to me already knows me and knows what kind of music I produce. This condition leaves me free enough. Usually it’s me who understands what is the atmosphere, I propose 10 different things, and very short, from these, we arrive at the final choice.
What is the strangest request you have been made?
I can not say it because there is a contract that forbids me to say.
What do you do, jingles for the CIA?
There are some brands claiming to advertising agencies, and individuals working together, to sign confidential agreements.
And one thing you can say?
There are many occasions that I could tell. For example when I played for Montezemolo. It was fun: me, a harpist and a flutist (Marzia Del Biondo) playing my music for the presentation of a collection of his own company. They were all beautiful.
On another occasion, I played with Marco Mazzei for Lapo Elkann. I was in Milan from many days and I had no longer neither clothes nor money. I bought a shirt in oviesse. I wonder if they noticed it… Another time before going to meet an important customer in the more expensive hotel in Milan, the agency asked me politely to go and buy some new shoes. Mine were too “crambling”.
Once, then, I was in the kitchen of Carlo Cracco to sample the sounds of his kitchen and he made me taste everything cooked with liquid nitrogen. I do not know, things bizzare, as well as interesting things, happen continuously.
When did you realize that this could be your job?
I started playing as a boy when I was 11-12 years old. I remember listening to bass parts in Bob Marley tunes, they had this straight groove’s , calm, resilient, and I wanted to play bass too. So I started playing bass, then jazz, samba, bossa nova, then moving to contrabass.
Did you study at conservatory?
No, always privately. I’ll be always grateful to my first teacher, Rocco D’Alonzo, he is unknown, but I could not have wished for better. A family friend, a neighbor, who wanted to teach music as I was his son. Meanwhile, studying bass, I started experimenting with tiny cheap mixer, two-channel and a stereo cassette. I was completely taken, all I did was recording bass, or the radio on a cassette and then put it one over the other, then come back again. I put the tape on and I could record on it. I spent whole afternoons doing these crazy things, which by the way I still had, a strange ambient, such ill things.
And it was all analog. What happened with digital?
I thought: “Now I go berserk!” I started doing things with computers, experimenting day and night. I no longer existed, I was totally into music and that was a total drug.
In your work, these two aspects, one more commercial and one more experimental, does live together or fight?
They fight. In fact, often when I do commercial work I use weird things (eg songs of seals) and, at times, they ask me to remove them, sometimes not, because maybe they want something new. I imagine that this is so even in the work of architects …
It is quite similar, except that when a customer asks you to remove something it is not because it does not matches his tastes, but in most cases, it is because he wants to save money. In your case, if you remove a sound, there is not a saving …
In fact, when you do the music for others, comments always get amazing because everyone thinks to know something …
As in architecture …
In fact, I’ve often thought that these two disciplines are similar, because they all thinks they know what is a house, they live in, and music is the same thing. About a month ago I did a job for a company that makes jewelry and sells worldwide. I had to create background music for stores and a CD to give to customers. When I presented the work I have been said things like, “I would prefer something more Carla Bruni’s… I wish this thing were more Al Jarreau’s …” Well, everyone, when it comes to music, wants to put in a word.
To get into freelance in music, which paths did you took?
At first I just did music for me and according to my tastes. I made the first record at 18 or 19 years with this group of Città Sant’Angelo called Tu M ‘and it was entirely experimental. Gradually I began to make things lighter, listenable. Virtually everything in reverse. In general, I think that in this work count much the relationships between people, the experience gained over time. I remember that the first commercial work was for an agency in Milan that chose pieces from my cd for a shop, a bit has happened by chance, but thanks to relations of friendship and mutual esteem.
After the first experience as a group what happend?
I started to work alone and, thanks to a record I made for a French label in 2003, I went to Paris, I did a tour in France and England and, from there, my own work in the field more really artistic started.
What is the title of this record?
Peanuts and Shells Geometria. The group was called Mou lips, we were in two. Critics called it “glitch pop” in the sense that music was distorted, damaged, in which error was part of the composition. After, collaborations are born, other projects, such as Pirandèlo with Marita Cosma and Claudio Sinatti, beautiful live in festivals around Europe. Since then I continued to do my music without caring too much. In the end it went well, in the sense that, even if it is a niche, the world of experimental music works, has its market, its fans …
I remember the first time we saw one of your works: you blindfolded us and sprayed with water …
It was a work with Andrea Di Cesare … I do not remember the title. I always tried to live in a special way to avoid that distance there is between someone who plays in front of the computer and the public. With Pirandèlo we started to accompany my music with Claudio’s projections and Marita’s slides, then with Andrea swe tarted performances, such as you witnessed, in which we blindfolded people and make them dancing and then embrace, simple life experiences, but suggestive. We proposed this work in a workshop in Latronico, in Basilicata, where all the little town was involved. It has been so successful that we had to repeat it 10 times, it was beautiful.
Another thing I remember is the project Ogni dove.
It was dedicated to Mario Masullo, a dear friend who died last year during the album preparation. I worked with Max Leggieri and Marco Mazzei and it was a way to soften the hurt of this so sudden loss .
What about Clap Rules?
Clap Rules is another collaboration with Fabrizio Mammarella and Max Leggieri. It is an experiment with dance music, very funny, because it allows us to place bizarre inserts, eccentric, experimental, inside danceable pieces. Watching people dancing and enjoying, it seems to be a successful experiment.
This contamination of genres and sounds is a trait of your music research?
I mix everything, without fear. Today, for example, I recorded all the musical instruments I have here as they perform a very simple motif. I wanted to see what was happens inside the sound. Actually it all started because I was trying to answer the question “what is the solution of love?”
Where did you get this question?
Everything I do comes from an idea, a sudden thought, a story. To give you an example, I find myself having the simiana line, this straight line across the palm of my hands, and I wrote on a piece. From a year now I started to been writing these ideas as they emerge in my mind and have become the basis for a job involving various video artists, including some known to you as Marco Antonecchia and Andrea Di Cesare. The last problem I’m working on here is “what is the solution of love?”, which, however, I have not yet found an answer to.
Do you always start with an idea when you compose music?
Yes, it is necessary. Then I choose from the sound or music and then try to find a balance between these two elements. I have a stupid theory about it , for me the sound is masculine and music feminine. The sound is male, “cazzaro”, straight, it does not mean anything by itself, but the music is magic, puts things in order and reasons.
Having to give some tips to start listening to experimental music, what advice would you give?
It does not matter what, but that is something different from the ‘usual’. One of my enlightenments was listening to Gastr del Sol, where Jim O’Rourke and David Grubbs play. This album happened in my hands by chance, it was pop, experimental, post-rock, was the first “strange” album that Ilisten to, after Weather Report, and I liked it. When you discover that things can be done in a different manner it opens up to you a world. Today it is easy to discover new music, you go on iTunes, select a piece that you like and then choose among the recommendations proposed, so you listen to songs or artists similar. Now I buy fewer and fewer newspapers to previews music because this digital store system music allows me to discover new things.
About music, let’s talk about a critical subject, San Remo.
This year I’ve seen it, but the more I looked the more I thought: “It sucks!”. There was a piece that I liked, the one from Francesco Renga, but he sings in a too exaggerated way.
Were you disappointed that he did not win?
Nah, I know that world revolving around and I know it’s just business. It is interesting the way in which the shape of songs has changed during time. San Remo songs, but a bit all nowadays, have a form in which the chorus, which should be the part you remember most, is overly dominant, and the verses are almost nonexistent. If you hear Luigi Tenco, before arriving at the chorus he creates an enormous pathos, perhaps with two verses and a bridge, so then, when the chorus arrives, you are in tears. San Remo is a faster way of producing music, consumables, disposables. In fact, all these songs last about a year and then fall into oblivion.
To know your tastes, reccomend us a website.
I have not been typing www for a long time, time to browse has become very little. If you go and see my sites on Safari, you will find my ftp, Posteitaliane, SIAE, soundcloud …
That’s an interesting system of sharing music, especially the ability to post comments …
Yes, but it is a system in which it is impossible to navigate because the tags are free. It’s too chaotic and, thus, is difficult to hear some really cool stuff.
Magazines?
The Wire a couple of times a year.
Books?
I usually buy music essays, ethnomusicology, biographies. Another area that fascinates me is psychology. For example, a book that really struck me, except for the title and ugly cover, is “The Drama of the Gifted Child” by Alice Miller.
Do you have other books to recommend?
There are so many … Recognize what it is. The power detector of family constellations of Bert Hellinger, or talking about music Sound Worlds by Tullia Magrini. Even Temperament. Story of a musical enigma by Stuart Isacoff, history of the tempered scale in music, how we got to have the white and black keys on the keyboard. It is a story behind which there is science, the church, corpses …
More addictive of Da Vinci Code! TV? Beyond San Remo …
I often watch it at night to sleep.
Movies?
I have a problem with movies, I can not sit for two hours straight.
Music?
It is impossible to answer, there is no choice, there are too many beautiful things. I can answer the last things that I’m listening to, like this Brazilian group, called Uakti, who plays Philip Glass‘s pieces with glass vibes. Then, I like an American producer named Jimmy Tambourello making an enjoyable pop. But music is all beautiful, classical music is beautiful, Bach is beautiful. Well, if I were to recommend something Iwould tell to listen to Glen Gould playing Bach. With Bach seems obvious, but the music has reached the highest levels. And then you said “music”, if you had told me “sound” …
Is there a city in which you would live?
No, but I would like to have a villa in different cities… I’ve always found myself well in Paris, but the province is the best place to live. In fact, here you are not so bad: the quality of life is high enough, you can move easily, why always complaining?
Of the many tools that are in this study, which is what you care about most?
It’s my first bass: for buying it I had to work for two seasons, using the bass of a friend of mine, in an liscio orchestra.
The most curious?
The scacciapensieri? Maybe this Crumar Marches synthesizer which no longer exists. I went with Fabrizio Mammarella to Rodi Garganico to take it, an absurd man that received it as payment from someone else. I like it because it is Italian and there are not many around. But the best of all is him, the moog: the best brush, you can draw whatever you want. It’s a sin that is not mine.
In your work, what are the qualities needed? And among these, which one of those you have and the ones you would have?
Surely you need creativity, patience and a lot of study. I never miss ideas in my head but, if I have to think of something that I really miss, I’d say I wish I could play better all these different instruments, especially the piano.
What would you like in your future?
I would like that the ideas hidden in my music were gradually growing out. I wish the small concept, from which I make music, more clear, evident. The last job I’m doing is right in this direction. Let’s see…
Maybe what you are trying to do is to find a balance between two extremes, an experimental music, cryptic to the most, and a more direct and universal one?
There is also this as motivation. Furthermore, since people is not listening music anymore, very few people do it really, I thought I’d take the music in video so people can listen to it while watching TV, in a more intimate way, like that of your own house. If we consider that the hi-fi does not exist anymore, I am convinced that the only means capable of playing pop music is the TV.
Why do you say that people do not listen to music anymore? Isn’t it everywhere?
It is precisely for that. Imagine all the walls filled with words, at some point you stop reading, or, in total confusion you do not understand anything, so it is with music. Moreover, there is no longer the physical medium, there is so much music and so fleeting that you can only lose it.
A concern?
No one.
Would you give us name of people you would like us to know?
You should interview: Bianco-Valente in Naples, if you succeed in catching them; Luigi Pagliarini in Pescara, if blocked, Claudio Sinatti in Milan, if related, Francesco Tenaglia in Milan, he knows a lot, for me. Many of them, however, you have already interviewed: Andrea Di Cesare, Marco Antonecchia, Marco Mazzei. Then there is Fabio Orlando EF, Fabio Perletta in Roseto … Damn! This is too a long list, I stop myself. That is a difficult question.
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slideshow on flickr
LINKS:
http://www.andreagabriele.com/
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