Diretamente de Milão, Itália, sim a Itália novamente nas páginas do TBTCI, vem o intenso e denso Arirang.
Um melancólico e doentio cruzamento entre shoegaze, post rock e cargas altíssimas de sombras. Geisha o EP de estreia do Arirang não é digamos uma audição simples e prazerosa, logo de cara a dobradinha Humming Rigmaroles seguida de Mantra Box já fica completamente explícito o que estas meras palavras tentam elucidar. Um caldeirão cruel entre Slint , Nick Cave em decibéis elevados.
Recomenda-se audição inicial sob a luz, mas caso queira ouvir em momentos diferentes, é por tua conta e risco.
***** Interview with Arirang *****
Q: When did Arirang start? Tell us about the history...
Arirang was born in Milan in 2013 as a trio, formed by Marco, Francesco and Giacomo.
In the past, Francesco and I were also part of a post-punk band called I Am You. When we split up, the two of us kept on practicing in a dirty room. For a year and a half, the line-up included me, Francesco and a boring machine called metronome… Just before going insane we met Davide, he was even better than the metronome, especially for his talking skills, but he quit the band to pursuit his career as artist. He’s now in Bruxelles, doing great. When we met Giacomo in 2013, we knew he was the one we were looking for (he’s also a great electronic music producer). That’s how we became Arirang.
Q: Who are your influences?
Ok, we’re kind of music junkies.
There’s a lot of thing inspiring us. Hieronymus Bosch, Joy Division, David lynch, Gustav Mahler, David Bowie, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Pixies, Sonic Youth, No Clear Mind, A Place to bury Strangers, Ought, Radiohead, Beatles, Ramones, Nick Cave, Suuns, Dirty Three, Verdena, Elliot Smith, David Lynch, Michel Gondry, Peter Greenaway, Francis Bacon, Egon Schiele, Vladimir Majakovskij, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Black Lips, Black Angels, Viet Cong, Beach House, BRMC, Interpol, Savages, Tortoise, Oneothrix Poin Never, Forest Swords, The Cure, Deerhunter, The Flaming Lips, Jiddu Krishnamurti, The National, Interpol, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Brian Jonestown Massacre…and more or less everything happens around us.
Q. Make a list of 5 albums of all time…
Unknown Pleasure
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Space Oddity
Three Imaginary Boys
Mezzanine
Q. How do you feel playing live?
Well, I suppose we feel like everybody should whilst doing what they love.
I mean, each one in the world has the right to feel alive, to become self-aware and play his role as a human being.
It’s a waste, in term of energy, that people have to apply themselves in something boring, useless. I mean, if you consider the entire world like any other system in nature, working just to earn money it’s equal to spend all your life in front of the Tv. Or in front of Fb. It’s a waste. But fortunately, a person is not his job.
You know, we still can’t just live off our music, we all need to find useless jobs to get by. But the moment we are on the stage, everything takes shape. That’s our place, like an habitat. We feel part of something bigger, deeper. And I hope, I know, that each one, finds his own habitat.
Q. How do you describe Arirang sounds?
Wow. It’s so difficult to talk about ourselves. We use to say that Arirang is a matter of sound. Maybe an orchestra, maybe just a solo.
But please, I would like to share the words that Monica, from A Giant Leap (she’s great!), used to describe us: often the tracks mutate towards forms recalling soundtracks for silent movies and documentaries about wild and yet unexplored lands, or you could imagine bodies dancing to it like in a Pina Bausch's choral perfomance. Installations and images on stage connect the instruments to lights and strobes, creating a dense atmosphere of moods-sharing between the players and the audience.
Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs?
Well, we don’t have any planned process, but we've just recorded once, when we got into the studio, the songs were already set up. The fact is that, we use to spend a lot of time in our rehearsal room, jamming and sometimes playing for hours on patterns, looping riffs, repeating random words or humming vocal lines. You know what I mean, this is just the soundtrack of our best time.
All the dirty work has been taken care by Andrea Cajelli. He recorded us at the amazing Sauna Studio (https://www.facebook.com/La-Sauna-recording-studio-68777161401/). Trust me, that’s a very inspiring place. I still remember the feeling of playing our drones in that field of sound, right in front of a huge lake. I could see the whole of it through the big windows. It was autumn, so the sky was a beautiful tone of grey whilst the lake was blue and, as time passed by, the two color melted together in a very deep blue. Amazing.
Q. Which new bands do you recommend?
I really like this question, because I have the feeling that something is happening right now in our country and also in Milan. There’s a lot of new great stuff in both the music and art scene and I’d like you to listen them. Here's my list:
The Gluts: https://www.facebook.com/thegluts/?fref=ts
Amazing post-punk melted to Shoegaze from the deepest of their soul. They make me sick.
Iokoi: https://www.facebook.com/iokoi/?fref=ts
electronic purity from outer space to your heart. Trust me.
GIobia: https://www.facebook.com/giobiaband/?fref=ts
A sort of kick in the ass made of acid sounds.
Daedal: https://www.facebook.com/DAEDALOFFICIAL/
Think about progressive. Then make it electronic and add a dose of punches.
Each one is for me an important reference point, as well as my blood brothers, but there are some other interesting act to suggest:
The Assyrians
Any Other
Be forest
Tight Eye
OWN BOO
Soviet Soviet
Novanta
Populous
Clap! Clap!
His Clancyness
Yakamoto Kotzuga
…
Q: Which band would you love to made a cover version of?
It’s hard to choose, we keep on changing our mind and sometimes we also think about some great songs from the bands listed above. Ok, here are just some of the names that came up in the latest weeks: Sonic Youth, Pixies, Bowie, Blur, Elvis, Nirvana, Beatles, Battisti.
Any other suggestion? Please help us!
Q: What are your plans for the future?
We just came back from a 10 dates tour in Southeastern Europe and in February we’re going to leave for our first 10 dates tour in Uk + some concerts in Swizterland. In the meantime we are planning other gigs in Italy. It could sound a bit strange, but whilst we’ve been asked to tour abroad, we still don’t have any booking agency helping us here in our home land.
Of course, in the meantime we are working on some new tracks for our first album.
Q: Any parting words?
Well, we’d like to thank you for this interview, congratulations for your hard work. The website is so cool! Other special thanks go to Andrea Cajelli for recording the Ep at La Sauna Studio, Paolo Rossi for mixing and mastering it at studio waves. Filippo Lambertenghi Deliliers for directing our first video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSZHyUypyNM), Caterina Gobbi for the amazing artwork on the cover of our Ep (you have to see her works here!http://www.caterinagobbi.com) , Giulio Vescovi for the graphic and Perpetua Edizioni for printing it.
A big thank to all of our friends and supporters. Really, thanks. That’s amazing.
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Thanks
https://arirang.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/wearearirang/
