Alessio Bertallot - The other side of radio

Alessio Bertallot is by now a historic figure in the world of radio: for eleven years he has hosted "B-Side" on Radio Deejay, where he has launched and spread a vast range of sounds, from drum'n'bass to underground hip-hop, all the way to Italian indie, helping this music break out of the basements and reach a much wider audience. Thanks to the wonders of modernity and email, we exchanged a few words about the Italian music scene. The result, between long-winded questions and consistently interesting answers, is this.

Alessio, let's start from the end, from what you've been focusing on lately: Italian music. On the homepage of your website there's a notice reading "Italian music wanted!", and beyond reaffirming your role as a talent scout, it sends a signal towards a music system - the Italian one - that seems inadequate not only in relation to its own output, to the ferment that somehow or other survives, but also to a modernity that has profoundly changed the way music is made and sold. I'll quote you directly: "The causes are perhaps too big and go beyond the musical sphere: they concern our life and our system. But I think it's wrong not to react." Would you like to expand on that statement?

I'm afraid we're heading towards an Italian society that's apathetic, lazy, indifferent and uprooted: forgetful of its own history, and therefore easy prey for hegemonic cultures - mainly Anglo-Saxon ones - from which, however, it only picks up the most superficial aspects: fast food and the get-rich-quick anti-culture of hip-hop, rather than the modernity of a social system or the ability of young people to become independent early on, to give one example. We're becoming a province of the empire where simple consumers are meant to live, people who don't cause problems for the market: they pay and keep quiet. A docile society, in other words. Musicians in this culturally declining society have no dignity and no support; there's no project to guide them, no home to host them. They study just as much as their foreign counterparts, and are sometimes just as good, but they can achieve less and aren't valued for their worth.

I'm a witness to this defeat, given the role I play. I know it's perhaps a losing battle, but I don't want to give up.

The compilation "Other Sounds Italiani" tries to shine a light on that world which, as you were saying, struggles to emerge, or only does so sporadically. You also make room for sounds that, in the common imagination, don't represent the idea of "Italian music" - if there ever was a shared understanding of what that means - in this case focusing mainly on downtempo or bossa nova. But we do have a tradition of electronic music producers who in recent years have managed to encroach on territories historically dominated by foreign artists. Madox, Blatta & Inesha, Santos and, more broadly, all the Mantra productions, or even the classic Bini and Martini, are just a few examples: has there been, and is there perhaps still under way, a kind of "revolution"? Has there been a shift towards these sounds that you think could be lasting?

Most of the producers you mention work abroad or for foreign markets: Madox himself recently talked about this as a guest on "B Side". Maybe that's how it should be, since geographical borders no longer really mean anything in music. But one, or even a handful, of musicians on their own don't make a difference: there needs to be a movement. And a movement needs roots of identity. In Italy plenty of fires have been lit - punk, socially conscious rap, club culture - and they've all gone out. That's just the art of survival, not a cultural construct. Maybe things could change. There are a lot of people looking for change, who are fed up with the shallow, the glamour, the low quality, and who find their own solutions by getting by, going to work abroad, buying records overseas, digging up more sophisticated information online, listening to the few radio shows that don't toe the line... and there's the problem: a revolution is never made alone, and in Italy, even in our misfortune, we each just look out for ourselves. Divided, like the poor in a famine.

If I'm not mistaken, this is the eleventh season at the helm of "B-Side", and through your radio broadcasts you've helped build passions for new sounds - I'm thinking, for instance, of all the drum'n'bass from the '90s to today, hip-hop and trip-hop, right up to Musica per Bambini, perhaps one of the most genuinely enjoyable things of recent times. Over all this time, I imagine there must have been something that left its mark on you: is there a movement or an artist you'd put at the top of a hypothetical list? And if you had to bet on some up-and-coming act, Italian or foreign, who would you choose?

I've simply done my duty. And these days, being honest is sometimes heroic. What has perhaps changed since I started is that music is no longer thought of in categories, a result of the fragmentation of ideologies we're living through. Among Italian musicians, besides Musica Per Bambini, I particularly appreciate Diego Mancino, Gianluca Massaroni, Chiara Civello and, even though I've never played them on air, Elio E Le Storie Tese. Among foreign musicians, Meshell Ndegeocello, the now-disbanded Soul Coughing, and then Fink, Scott Matthews, Trentemoller, Nostalgia 77… I'd better stop there.

The most common criticism levelled at the music market concerns the price of music itself. For a few years now people have been complaining about the excessive cost of "physical" records, and sometimes even of their digital counterparts. On one side you have the majors and copyright-enforcement bodies with their campaigns and lawsuits, on the other an army of music-hungry listeners refusing to pay up. Caught in the middle is Radiohead's recent move to sell an album in mp3 at whatever price the buyer decides: for the first time, it's the listener who sets the value of the work. Do you think Yorke and co.'s choice will remain an isolated case, or will other artists increasingly realise that, in 2007, the way of communicating with fans — including through record sales — has changed profoundly?

I think artists need to take advantage of the revolution the internet has brought about to reclaim the system that produces and promotes music. In that sense, Radiohead did something interesting. Let's remember that when we talk about record prices, the share that goes to musicians is only a tiny percentage, so it's mainly the industry that's in crisis. But of course, without support from the system, musicians can't make a living, and they wouldn't even get that little bit.

What we need to make young people understand is that getting music for free, without consent, isn't normal — it's an act of bullying that's also exercised against the artists. Something must always be given in return: at the very least, love. And piling up an endless number of tracks on your hard drive, only to forget about them because they cost nothing, is not love. And enough with playing the victim: they've got the money to buy glasses with the brand name written in huge letters, haven't they? They could spend their money better. Or at least they should get paid for showing off such flashy logos…

"B-Side" is the kind of show that builds loyalty by offering unusual music on a national network like Radio Deejay, and in some way you've also built a relationship with your listeners. In recent years, for a number of reasons tied mainly to technology — the internet, blogs, downloads, etc. — the way people experience music has changed, becoming on one hand far more random and less guided (paradoxically, more punk!), and on the other offering greater opportunities to dig deeper into what you like. In a context like this, from your point of view, has there been a move away from "musical passion"? Has that MTV-style syndrome of grabbing everything and nothing intensified, or has just the medium changed?

Technology will never be able to replace the wonderful imperfection of human input. Hoping that a click on "other buyers of this record also bought…" can replace culture and musical research is naive. Knowledge is made of encounters, not clicks. Access to the ocean of information available today doesn't produce culture, but accumulation, database expansion, informationism. There's no point being able to travel to every city if you never look at the map.

After this interrogation, I've got one last question and then I'll let you go. I think I speak for a lot of people when I ask: do you use that same tone of voice you have on air when you're chatting about "football and girls" with your friends?!

Unfortunately, given how used we've become to the way radio sounds and is made, you either use that holiday-resort-announcer tone, or you come across as odd. Try listening to Radio 3 (Rai) on a Sunday morning, or the BBC at night: there's still something different out there — who'd have thought?

I do use it, yes, to chat about girls with my friends, but I also use it a lot to chat with girls, and not about friends… Talking about sport bores me, I'd rather play it. And not football. Snowboarding and windsurfing.

Thanks so much again, and good luck with your upcoming projects!

(17/10/2007)

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