|
Interview with Gregorio Bardini
Gregorio Bardini is an italian composer and writer. He played with various bands (T.A.C., Tuxedomoon, Thelema), he plays solo and with Thierry Jolif. He is interested in traditional art and in experimental/avantgarde music.
Welcome, Gregorio! Few weeks ago I bought your CD "Sentinelle dell Mattino" and I am very impressed by this material. I consider this album as an unique mix of few styles - maybe rock, folk/neofolk, industrial, ambient/electronics and even "modern classical" music. So I have a question: do you know american orthodox zine "Death To The World"? They use such slogan: "Freedom from the tyranny of fashion!" and I think that your music is something like this. What do you think about this interpretation?
I'm agree with you, thank you! Yes, i know "Death To The World" and i like it. The freedom in the style of music is very important for me. I research a freedom of choice in my compositions, it's really a freedom from the tyranny of fashion!
Styles, motives and themes are often mixed in so-called "post-modern" art and literature. What do you think about this phenomen? I know that on "Credo in unum Deum" you wrote that "postmodern phenomen is a parody of tradition". Personally I think that there is a difference between mixing genres to make something meaningful (I see this in music of Von Thronstahl, Lonsai Maikov, Parzival and your, of course) - and making useless mixtures without deeper sense (which is typical for many artists of our time). What's your opinion?
The styles oft are mixed without signifance in the post-modern art or only for the taste of the paradoxe. Politically correct and soft-nihilism are the soul of the post-modern art and literature.
I always want to find the "synthesis" in my music not the "synchretism" as dogma.
Tell us something more about your participation in "Credo in unum Deum". Do you consider this album as something important, maybe breakthrough on this "martial/neofolk" scene?
"Credo in unum Deum" was a good Damiando Mercuri (Rose Rovine e Amanti) and Joseph Klumb's (von Thronstahl) idea. It's a sign and a message : in this neofolk scene not all the people and bands are
satanist, neo-pagans, nihilist or crowleyan. I don't think that the neofolk scene can appreciate this message. We can use neofolk music as form of evangelisation but not to create a new fashion.
What's your opinion on so-called "industrial" music? Do you consider this art as a mirror of modern civilization? Do you agree that industrial can be used to promote authentic spiritual values (Kriegsfall-U, Green Army Fraction) but many artist use it only to present shocking "atrocity exhibition"?
I'm agree that industrial can be used to promote religious messagges. I like Kriegsfall-U, for example. But i don't like the overwhelming of the old and new industrial bands, their music and look. They play not original music. The nihilism and stupidity are always present in these artistic tendencies, i don't like the "atrocity exhibition". This art is a symptom, not a mirror of modern civilization.
XXth century gave us many kinds of "avantgarde" music - from Schoenberg and Messiaen to "click and cut" or noise. Do you agree with Thierry Jolif who wrote: "We use every sounds, every spaces - because Christ is a measure of all things"? What's the relation between avantgarde art and tradition or spirituality? Kriegsfall-U play "sacral post-industrial", Oliver Messiaen used a lot of dissonances and unusual rhytmic structures, there is a "traditionalist black metal" band Spite Extreme Wing in Italy... some conservative people think that such methods are bit controversial for a man who wants to be in a connection with Tradition - but the other consider this approach as - for example - "archeofuturism"...
I'm a agree with Thierry. Conservative people think that Tradition is God. It is the error of this mentality. I naturally don't try to use sacral post-industrial for a meditation, prayers or for a Holy Rite! I prefere old sacred latine music, that's sure! The approch of archeofuturism as art is more interesting for me.
Could you tell us something about project "Bardini + Jolif"?
Finally our album "Kantalon", produced by the israelian label "The Eastern front" is out now!
"Kantalon" is an ancient Gaelic word, it refers, in this old Celtic tongue, to the «chant» but also to the lessons that the druids were teaching to their pupils. This name has been found engraved on a votive pillar, so we could see a symbolical link traced between the knowledge the druids were transmitting through the oral, and often singing, courses and the pillar rooted deeply in the soil and with his peak touching to the skies, sacred domain of the invisible. By the years has been transmitted in the old Celtic land of Brittany, many popular song in the Celtic local tongue. Of course those songs they had nothing to do (or so far) with the teachings of the ancient druids, but often they are also «lessons». Lessons about events of the past times, mainly sad events, stories of crimes, of battles, of losing ... Sometimes the exact subject of the story is not so easy to recognize, sometimes the words are quite obscure in their meaning but most of the times, with a little feeling of what really means symbolism, we are able to find the real and concrete spiritual meaning of the song. As the Kantalon is rooted into a particular soil so we are, and those songs are too, they belong to us because we belong to this particular ground and country even if we are living in a time far away from the time in which they were created. So we took those songs not “as they were”, but as they could be now, with all the musical background we had inside of us. We had worked on this distance between their origin and us as a real musical matter. Our aim was not to try to do a kind of mix between medieval music and modern one but to express the spiritual reality and complexity of those lyrics and melodies into our own musical field as if those songs made a travel through time and had to pass through the filters of modern music (experimental, concrete, classical, free-jazz, industrial ... and so on) to reach our brains and our instruments.
How do you consider relationship between christianity (especcialy catholicism) and "integral traditionalism" or "perennialism"? Are you influenced by works of such christian philosophers as Jean Borella, Silvano Panunzio and Rama Coomaraswamy who were interested in "traditionalism"?
I like partially integral traditionalism and perennialism. They were important but they are to limited and close now, a sort of new little sects. I appreciate the great Rama Coomarswamy, his work is really magistral.
I was in contact with Silvano Panunzio and I collaborated to his magazine "Metapolitica" for few years at the end of the '80. The books of Jean Borella are interesting but i was influenced more by Guido de Giorgio and Attilio Mordini.
Tell us about your old CDs: "Eurasia"...
"Eurasia" was my first solo album. It's an autoproduction (1996) It's a sort of industrial folk music ( i played in the tracks differents ethnic flutes), an eurasian industrial folk music in a geopolitical signifance. The soul of the project is clearly a sciamanic soul...I was very influenced by my studies about music and sciamanism in Eurasia. This is the title of my first book ("Musica e Sciamanesimo in Eurasia", Edizioni Barbarossa, Milano, 1996).
...and "Cosmic Milk".
"Cosmic Milk" is my first collaboration with another composer, live and in studio, and my first album produced by an european label (Multimood rec, Sweden). Carlo Cantini is not only a composer, he is a violinist too (violin and e-violin). I had played in the past only with groups. With "Eurasia" i started to work as solo-artist and with "Cosmic Milk" with other composers. In this album is present my new wave/electronic side and my other particular influences as Magma, Universe Zero, old prog french and italian bands.
Do you know any polish bands or musicians (or other artists)? Do you have any contact with polish listeners of your music?
There are in Poland a lot of listeners of my music, i'm very happy of that! I like Krepulec but i don't know other polish groups.I'm very interested about "sarmatism" and i'd like to know other good bands from your land...
|
