Heroin In Tahiti - Spaghetti Wasteland

Something that has always intrigued me about people like you, who make music while also following it with a critic's eye, in a cross-disciplinary way: how do you “decide” on your sound? How much of the creative process is calculated, and how much is spontaneous?

V: Hmm, I think the right question is “how much is involuntary, and how many mistakes are involved”. We're not musicians, and I think that even if we wanted to sit down and work out ingredients and doses in advance, we wouldn't be technically capable of sticking to the initial idea. Generally what you call the “creative process”, in our case, boils down to exhausting attempts that fail miserably, but which for some reason we like. More or less.

F: To a large extent, that's how it is: you start from a hazy idea, a vague and often rhetorical imaginary representation, and then you end up with something that inevitably drifts away from the initial idea. Intentions have to reckon with personal limits and abilities, everyday life, and the actual means you have available. It's an inevitable process that ends up asserting a kind of stylistic imprint. It should also be said that the question of “type of sound” has a lot to do with aesthetic and cultural judgments. Having the opportunity and the interest to look at music with a critical eye certainly carries weight, but I don't think it depends on the profession you practice in life — every individual develops their own critical outlook on whatever interests them.

How and why did Heroin in Tahiti come about?

V: Francesco wanted to play drones, I wanted to play twangy stuff, we met halfway, and what came out of it we called “Death Surf“.

F: Terse and clear, I agree.

So let's go with the usual annoying question: is there any particular band that inspired you?

V: Sure, Wings.

F: With some presumption, I'd say no one in particular.

How does the radioactive-beach imagery you manage to evoke tie in with where you come from (East Rome)?

V: Actually, I don't think either of us wanted to evoke “radioactive beaches” (which, in any case, aren't far from here: just take the Raccordo Anulare and take a drive out to Focene and the surrounding area). If anything, there's a track we titled “Spaghetti Wasteland”, and that's the one

I personally identify with more: aside from the fact that we live in a neighborhood strongly tied to a certain Italian cinematic imagery (Neorealism, Pasolini, etc.), you should take a walk near my place in August, with the sun beating down and dust rising off the renovated former shacks: it looks like a scene out of Sergio Leone, you genuinely expect to find Lee Van Cleef around the corner.

F: Yes, let's say it's a bit like the same bond between spaghetti westerns and the Abruzzo badlands.

Speaking of Spaghetti, it seems to me that your approach reveals a certain passion for Italian library music, that genre-that-isn't-quite-a-genre which has lately been getting a lot of coverage in underground circles. What's your relationship with that particular offshoot of the Italian sound?

V: Admiration mixed with envy, I'd say.

F: Well, we're definitely very interested in it, and not just in what falls under the label "Italian library music", but in everything good that was produced in Italy during that period. It's as if, growing up, we developed a need for a kind of identity reclamation...

Is there a red thread running from Morricone and Umiliani, through, say, the Tony Esposito of "Rosso Napoletano" (the title track of that album strikes me as very much in line with what you do), Lino Capra Vaccina and Sensations' Fix, all the way to things like My Cat Is An Alien and then to Heroin in Tahiti? Mediterranean sounds, soundtracks and cosmic psychedelia...

V: I'm glad you pick up on the affinities with Tony Esposito, "Rosso Napoletano" is a great record. As for your question: it's a complex subject, I've personally been working on it on my own and I've come to the conclusion that yes, there is a red thread linking the origins of the Spaghetti Sound to the "experimental-progressive" experiences of the Seventies. There's so much overlap, of so many kinds, but let me try to give you an example. Take the birth of so-called "free improvisation" in Rome, around the mid-Sixties. Franco Evangelisti puts together the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza (GINC) and brings in, among others, Ennio Morricone and Egisto Macchi. There's no need to dwell on Morricone's role in shaping the Spaghetti Sound. Macchi, in turn, would become an extraordinary composer of library music, perhaps the greatest alongside Umiliani, who however came from a jazz background. Going back to GINC: a group of Americans expatriated in Rome — including Alvin Curran — learn about it and form their own collective, Musica Electronic Viva. Over time Curran blends the experience gained in the "improvised" field with American minimalism, which found one of its European epicenters right in Rome, thanks to Fabio Sargentini's L'Attico gallery. From there minimalism spreads through Italy and begins to seep into rock circles, especially in Milan: Franco Battiato, Claudio Rocchi, that whole crowd. Rocchi even told me that seeing Alvin Curran live in Trastevere changed his life — I'd interviewed him just a few months before he died... Anyway: at the same time, since Evangelisti wanted to "win over the young", GINC churns out a series of practically rock records, for instance The Feed-Back, which is an extraordinary album but also very close to the typical Spaghetti Sound of the "giallo" period; other free improvisers based in Rome, more tied to free jazz, rediscover "ethno-Italian" roots (Mario Schiano, Marcello Melis, that sort of thing) practically at the same time as Esposito & co.'s Napoli Power, but there's also Andrea Centazzo, who moves from free jazz to cosmic music. And we haven't even talked about the crossover between prog and soundtracks, between folk and improvised music... We haven't mentioned Gaslini, Area, the Cramps crowd... So, as you can see, it was all deeply interconnected, sometimes there was literally an exchange of names moving from one experience to another. Then that exchange came to a halt towards the end of the Seventies, and that "Italianness" was somewhat diluted by the post-punk backlash (though Italo disco... but let's not go down that road any further). As you can imagine, it's a tradition I care about a great deal, though I don't know if Heroin In Tahiti can be considered its "continuators" — actually, I'd say I wouldn't go that far. Enthusiasts, yes, but we're coming along forty years later...

F: I don't think there's much to add...

Coming to your releases, "Death Surf" was very well received. If you could go back, would you do it the same way again?

V: Yes.

F: Definitely.

Watching you at Thalassa, I got the impression of a much more expansive, immersive sound than on record. Is that a feature of your live sound, or is it perhaps territory you're also exploring in the studio?

V: If we were capable of recording decently, maybe that "immersive sound" would come through. Unfortunately, our means are what they are.

F: By now it's pretty clear to both of us that H.I.T.'s live dimension and studio dimension call for a completely different kind of work and approach. Basically, in our live shows we try to give the songs a freer, more extroverted shape.

Your latest release is the split with Ensemble Economique — whose idea was it, and how did it come together?

V: The idea came from Toni and Ricky, of No=Fi and Sound Of Cobra respectively. Since we didn't want to do the usual split with tracks salvaged from discarded sessions and the like, on our side we did this sort of suite about a family going on holiday and then, I don't know, something happens... Let's say it ends badly. I really like the result, I think it's quite a bit better than "Death Surf", but you know how it is, it's not for me to judge.

F: We met Brian Pyle when he came to play in Rome for the Rainforest series, which Valerio and I curate, and which mostly takes place at Dal Verme (Toni and co.'s venue). Brian liked what we were doing and we liked what he was doing. When they offered us the chance to put out a split, we took advantage of having just one side to try and tell a short story, from beginning to tragic end.

What are your next moves?

V: A triple album (so far we're at an album and a half) and then get back to playing live.

F: Triple? Let's make it a double. 

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