Postcards from Italy: Milan part III – Interview with Fabio Carboni – Die Schachtel and Sara Serighelli – O’

Garibaldi-Isola, a rapidly mutating district in the heart of Milan, is home to Die Schachtel, a record label/publishing house specialising in electronic/concrete/avant-garde music, sound poetry and artist’s records, established in 2003 by Fabio Carboni and Bruno Stucchi. Since 2007 it has been collaborating with O’, an interdisciplinary art space founded by Sara Serighelli and Angelo Colombo in 2001 to promote residency programmes, art exhibitions, lectures, performances and concerts. Projects are mainly site specific and originated by connections, visits, living and lasting relations…

What is the current state of electro acoustic music in Italy?

Fabio Carboni: In the last couple of years, the electro-acoustic scene has become increasingly vibrant, thanks to a new generation of musicians who have taken up and developed electronic music in a totally spontaneous and original way. This has not meant a fracture with the past, but neither has it signalled a nostalgic walk down the experimental music lane. What has happened has been an intensification of the activity and interest surrounding all things electro-acoustic, and this has been true not only for Milan. Nowadays, musicians are not just looking for venues to play, but are happy to try different approaches and try on new hats. Many of them, for instance also act as producers and not just on their own albums. Some even open project spaces and invite their peers to play, thus creating a network of musicians who don’t always all know each other, but frequently end up collaborating.

Sara Serighelli: It has to be said as well, that with far fewer venues and dedicated spaces for live performances, the scene has became more dynamic out of necessity. Festivals, events, and gigs have become nomadic with musicians always trying to find new and alternative ways of presenting their work.

FC: As far as the experimental music scene goes, traditional music venues have become obsolete in Italy, whereas they still seem to function in the UK. To program a series of electro-acoustic gigs is not seen as financially viable in Italy, therefore new initiatives have sprung up with people playing sets in private flats and apartments that are seldom if ever advertised and function by word of mouth. What normally happens is that one gets onto a mailing list and is then notified of the date, time, and location of forthcoming events. There is currently no website connecting all such initiatives, but this is something we are working on.

Another reason why Milan is a hub of activity is that the city has always been a centre of production, with recording studios and printing facilities etc, which makes it easier to release albums here. This explains the recent proliferation of new record labels such as Senufo, Hundebiss, Presto Records, Urashima, etc. Having said that, the experimental music scene is highly developed with new things happening in the Veneto region as well, and specifically in Vittorio Veneto, home of the music label Von, and to a lesser degree in Venice and Padova. There’s also been a kind of renaissance in cities like Florence, Modena, Rome, Naples and Palermo.

What are the main challenges in running a small label like Die Schachtel?

FC: Even though we have been operating for eight years now with a good line of distribution we operate at a loss. We started off by releasing obscure archival material from the 50s up to the 80s by neglected composers who have only been too happy to see their work finally been distributed. We wanted to re-activate the sounds of pioneers of computer music, such as Pietro Grossi, founder of the Studio of Phonology of Florence, and to give voice to seminal, yet little known female artists such as Teresa Rampazzi and Franca Sacchi. Alongside historical analogical electronic music recordings, though, we have also been promoting new works mainly by young Italian musicians, with the odd exception, which is by no means an easy task. What we lack in Italy is the ability to create a cohesive scene, which can be promoted, discussed and narrated as one.

You both have a very strong connection to the visual arts…

SS: When O’ first opened, it was centred specifically on the visual arts, but since I met Fabio in 2007 we have introduced music into the equation. The first artist’s edition we produced was with the Italian sound artist Alessandro Bosetti, and it was the result of a residency. Many others have followed, such as Phill Niblock with whom we released a DVD. Nowadays, people who visit the gallery space expect a show that has some relation to music.

FC: In terms of the label, Bruno Stucchi has given a strong graphic imprint to Die Schactel. While he tends to work on his own, leaving me to deal directly with the musicians, he never delves into a personal archive of images but always draws inspiration directly from the music. We recently won the 2011 D&AD Design award for Musica Improvvisa a 10 CD box set in a series of painstakingly designed individual CD/LP sleeves by ten Italian bands that spans from the South to the North of Italy.

Do you ever trigger collaborations between different musicians?

FC: Not directly, even though we tend to forward any information we might get about gigs and events where musicians can meet. For instance, when Attila Faravelli came to us with his first album, he did not really know any of the people he has since been collaborating with.

SS: Here at O’ we stage two or three different gigs a month often with several musicians playing on the same night. In the case of Tony Conrad, for example, we had Å playing before him after which they did a piece together. The same happened with Attila Faravelli and Oren Ambarchi. In same cases musicians end up becoming friends or collaborating, but nothing is ever forced. We have a rich programme of live gigs in Autumn but we are always on the lookout for people to come and play at O’.

Finally, if you were to send a postcard from Milan which place would you pick?

FC: Milan’s central station because it is such a melting pot of different people from all walks of lives.

SS: The Navigli. They have been neglected for so long that, when they recently re-opend them for navigation during the Summer, even though it was for such a short distance, I felt a wave of optimism especially since the election in recent months of the mayor of Milan after years of right wing administration.

- Gianmarco Del Re for Fluid Radio

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Milano Centrale is the main railway station in Milan officially inaugurated in 1931. Its original plans acquired a monumental dimension when Benito Mussolini became prime minister. Platform 21 became infamous when trains left for Auschwitz-Birkenau towards the end of the Second World War. The station also features in the epilogue of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s masterpiece Teorema (1968).

The Navigli was a system of navigable and linked canals that connected Milan with Switzerland, through Lake Maggiore, and with the Adriatic Sea via the Po river. The North Eastern canals and the entire inner rings of Milan were covered over in the 1930s leaving only the Naviglio Grande and the Naviglio Pavese, which went rapidly into decline.

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Images: 1 + 2 = O’ (Sara Serighelli’s art space) / 3 + 4 = Garibaldi Isola district / 5 + 6 = Navigli (chosen by Sata Serighelli) / 7 = Milano Centrale railway station (chosen by Fabio Carboni).
Photography by Gianmarco Del Re

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www.dieschachtel.com
www.on-o.org
www.dinamomilano.com