Larsen Lombriki - "We wanted to play easy-listening"

I finally managed it! After days and days of tailing, wiretapping, dangerous disguises, ruthless deals, willful or negligent dissonances, I've finally nabbed Larsen Lombriki, absolutely guilty of emitting unsettling frequencies and producing music so far from reassuring that it forces the neighbors to lock their door every time I listen to their music.

I remind you that anything you say can be used against you... What do you have to say in your defense?

+uno: Swing, jazz, blues are the genres we love but that the Beatles killed off many years ago. We would never have dared... we weren't even born yet. As you can see, we have nothing to say in our defense because we're not guilty of anything.

Spenazo: No comment.

Pix: Actually we try to play easy listening, but then it comes out like this...

Ben Presto: Well, I'd say this album only partly sums up the ensemble's centrifugal tendencies... hehehe!

Is there an ideal place where you'd play this record?

Pix: Inside an elevator going up and down without ever stopping.

+uno: If we lived in a better world, at our villa in Capri bought with the money made from selling the record.

Spenazo: During a little party on an isolated beach, under the starry sky of the Caribbean Sea, with an Arabian moon smiling sideways.

Ben Presto: At a Forza Italy convention!

Listening to " Free From Deceit Or Cunnings ", the first sensation is one of disorientation, meaning that even though you can pick out some reference points, you immediately find yourself thrown off by what happens next. Can the reaction that listening to one of your tracks might provoke end up shaping how you write them?

+uno: Absolutely not!

Spenazo: Yes. While working on the tracks we tried not only to vary the sonic "atmospheres," but also to suggest references and then "deviate" from them. To hint at possible expectations but also betray them, to achieve estrangement, perhaps, but also something different and new.

Pix: During composition and performance I'd say no, but when we put all the pieces of the work together we try to surprise ourselves, so we don't do anything to avoid the final listen turning out disorienting.

Ben Presto: And yet to me the writing – if we can call it that – seems so fluid... surely in our DNA there's a fair amount of "melodies" mixed in with "noises." The sounds of the city. And without wanting to make a tired, overly aestheticized apology for Futurism, I can safely say that this alternation or fusion of disparate sounds – even random ones – generates something that can be traced back to music. Imagine being somewhere like the Porta Portese market and wanting to make some field recordings. That's the idea here: you can't leave out one sound or another. They simply coexist, but that doesn't mean they're cohesive – quite the opposite. Maybe Lombriki reflect that, who knows...

When you write a track, are you more inclined to follow "physical" instinct or to develop the more conceptual aspects?

Ben Presto: Even though I'm the wordy one, I can honestly say that physicality and instinct come first. The post-production phase is what squares the circle, what gives it more "meaning" (often).

Spenazo: Usually when I think about a new piece I try to follow instinct, to "physically" develop ideas that aren't musical yet, but that also relate to the music I like to listen to (as well as the music I listen to without liking it). When a track is put in relation to other music, its "conceptual" side can come to the fore, but an "absolute" listening experience, with no reference points at all, is impossible (even if a lout like +1 might claim otherwise...).

+uno: I'd like to make music that's sweaty and smelly!

Pix: Naturally I don't agree with any of the three! I think the approach is decidedly conceptual, but then when we play something animalistic and wild comes out, something maybe even we aren't aware of.

Your live shows are known for being true audio-visual performances – at times it's easy to think the visual side is the natural completion of the music. I wanted to ask you: can the idea of a performance sometimes even shape the writing of your tracks? Has that ever happened to you?

Ben Presto: Several times it's happened that we thought of a performance before the track itself, yes. See the so-called "apartment festivals"...

Spenazo: No, never.

Pix: I'd say no.

+uno: Actually yes, I agree with Ben Presto, we're vain.

In your shows are you inclined to interact with the audience? Can their reaction, in turn, influence your performance?

+uno: Yes! With someone nice, somewhere, it could even happen.

Spenazo: Every show is the result of an interaction. I'd add that among the forms of interaction, I prefer the less showy ones.

Ben Presto: Of course! It seems silly not to take into account who's watching and listening. Without the audience, nothing we do would make sense.

Pix: Emotion is a pretty strong component live. Partly by choice, partly out of necessity, we never know exactly what or how we'll sound. So people's reaction becomes part of the game. You never know what might happen...

Is there an artist outside the strictly musical field you'd like to collaborate with?

Spenazo: Joey Skaggs (a prankster).

+uno: Violante Placido. I'm not joking, I just read an article about her: she made an album, she lives in Rome, but she had to go all the way to Pescara to find someone to play with. Dear Violante, if you feel musically isolated in Rome, call the Larsen Lombriki, send us an email! We'll even come for a bowl of soup! Something nice could come out of it. With us you'd become more glam than Kate Moss... Actually, nobody calls us, people are afraid of us.

Pix: Well, Luis Bunuel, Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick are no longer with us, so I'd say no. But I could join +uno in inviting Violante Placido to come sing with us! I've always loved female voices, who knows what effect Violante Placido's voice would have on Larsen Lombriki's music...

Ben Presto: personally I'd add Phil Minton's voice to ours. And I'd widen the collective to include unsavoury characters like Edoardo Ricci and Eugenio Sanna... hahaha!

Spenazo: Placido Domingo, too.

Why do you think the major Italian record labels are still "wary" of independent music, even though many bands or artists from that scene are drawing an ever-growing following?

Ben Presto: The answer is almost obvious: they wouldn't sell enough. The only chance (and I don't think I'm the only one who thinks this) is to put yourself out there and get known as much as possible through live shows...

Spenazo: Probably, appearances aside, Italian labels still have to deal with an (unwarranted) provincialism complex, which is why they keep clinging to the certainties of tradition, religion, regional cuisine, the local market, and so on.

+uno: For the same reason Violante Placido will never become like Kate Moss. Here they put junkies into rehab with the priests, into jail! In Italy junkies don't make records, it's worse here than in Romania under Ceausescu...

Pix: Because they operate exclusively in terms of profit. It would take open-mindedness, vision, courage; exactly what Italian record labels don't have!

What's the use of rock and roll today?

Spenazo: To sell i-pods.

+uno: To fill up the afternoons of silly teenagers and the evenings of clever adults.

Ben Presto: What's the use of having a good breakfast in the morning?

Pix: To save your life!

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