Perturbazione - Rediscovering Buona Novella

Perturbazione talk about the making of their new double album, "Of Our Stolen Time", their complicated split from EMI, and Turin and its surrounding province.

"We didn't want to throw anything away, that's all there is to it." That's what lies behind one of the rare gems produced by Italy's endlessly lively indie underground. "Of Our Stolen Time" is the title of the new Perturbazione album, a double record, more or less like all the great names of rock have made at some point. We caught up by phone with Tommaso Cerasuolo, the band's singer, who told us what lies behind an operation that seems, on the surface, so complex and massive.

"Until not long ago, the word album gave us hives. It was really a situation of collapse — the previous tour had ended abruptly, things had gone badly with EMI (they dropped us just two months after the album came out...). Let's just say that at that point, Perturbazione was a project in complete deadlock. So, like a couple going through a crisis, we took a break for some collective reflection. To avoid standing still, we took an acoustic show on the road ("Le città viste dal basso", ed.) and carried on our collaboration with Loescher ("Enlarge your english", ed.), but as for the album: total allergy!" How is it possible not to feel the burning sense of having failed, in a situation like that? "Because, from the very start of this adventure, we've always tried above all to reflect on our own mistakes. And to start over, wiser and stronger than before. Also bear in mind that it was a crucial time — a lot of things changed, and plenty of kids were born into our families! What held us together were the songs, and that's why, in a sense, we trusted them: we let them go, respecting everyone's ideas far more."

A hunch that, judging by the result, turned out to be right. The overall material from two years of work, from 2007 to 2009, once heard in Cristiano and Rossano Lo Mele's studio, gave the band a paradoxical sense of strong collective unity: "Yes, in some way it took shape on its own. Even the first person outside the band to hear the tracks, our trusty Fabio Magistrali, later at the desk for the album's mixing, gave us excellent feedback." Even so, at first glance, it has to be said, the length is daunting. "We know that, we're well aware of it. And in fact, the cd-r included in the packaging, which I curated myself, is meant precisely to give each listener the freedom to burn whatever they want: a compilation of tracks from the album, or an AC/DC album... really, whatever they like! It's all inspired by the first track, "Istruzioni per l'uso": in an age made of boxes, where there's little content and plenty of packaging, it's nice for once to let the listener decide what they want to hear."

It seems the breakdown of the relationship with EMI weighed heavily on the making of this album, and that even the title conceals careful reflection on what happened: "Certain things make you wonder whether the time passing alongside you is stolen or precious, whether you let it be taken from you or manage to stop it and make it special. Maybe the magic of this record lies precisely in our conviction that we made our time precious. I can assure you it's a really tough time financially, but artistically and personally we're over the moon."

Perhaps what really grips the majors, then, is precisely a lack of patience, a mismanagement of time. "That's exactly where the misunderstandings came from: knowing ourselves well, and this not being our first experience with a record label, we knew perfectly well that we were a slow burner, and that the album would therefore take some patience to pay off. With Mescal, for instance, that's exactly how it had gone. At EMI, the main problem we had was with Marco Alboni, someone indecisive by nature and completely swallowed up by this schizophrenia around time... On one side there was him, and on the other there was our determination to work over the long term. But then again, these are people who bet everything on the X-Factor model: during meetings at the label, they'd talk about the crisis facing the record and about Finley. 'Do these guys even understand who they're working with?' we'd ask ourselves. It wouldn't have been so hard to find the slice of marketing that actually suited us — it's a basic marketing principle: to sell Perturbazione, you need to target a very specific audience, probably quite different from that of talent shows. But the bitter truth is that they're incompetent even on these matters, which should be their bread and butter. It's a mind-boggling world, packed full of yes-men, where contradiction is the order of the day: you have your headquarters in Piazza San Babila, in the centre of Milan, yet you don't hesitate to cut fifty jobs in no time at all."

Tommaso's long outburst carries the flavour of a wound still open. But also of a different kind of awareness, perhaps a little disillusioned, though maybe standing on steadier ground. "We really don't like this everything's-fine dimension. The spectrum of colours in the real world is much wider, even though it's constantly at risk of being cannibalised. Life is beautiful precisely because it's made up of sunshine and rain! And what were Shakespeare, Dante, and all the greats writing about, if not that? It feels like we're back in the eighties, when everything was glossy and polished... On this record, we tried to capture that feeling too."

"For once, on this record, everyone's ideas were respected," said Tommaso. But was it really that easy? "No, not at all. Democracy takes effort, because there are a thousand things to decide. And even though we're lucky enough to have other people helping us, we still spend a huge amount of time on it. In reality, everyone has their own specific area (someone handles the graphics, someone the website, someone the van...) so a kind of alternating leadership naturally emerges among us."

Rivoli, in the province of Turin. That's where Perturbazione come from, joining that host of bands who grew up in a small-town setting. What does the provinces give you, and what does it take away? "The cultural void can sometimes be very strong. You feel more alone, but you also tend to recognize yourself in the people around you, and that's a good thing. So on one hand you're driven to look for a way out, but on the other you're living in a reality made of more authentic, natural human relationships... which, as a teenager, can feel suffocating. It's a complicated thing, really: for me, there's a love-hate dynamic between city and province that's dialectically creative. And keep in mind that Turin has kept a very concrete, human vitality over the years... it's a mix of industrialization and provincialism, with a history tightly bound to Fiat and immigration, and it's the cradle of the best secular tradition but also of a genuine Catholicism, one that knows how to get its hands dirty. Let's say that I, and I think the others too, grew up straddling this Turin and its surrounding province."

Tommaso is a father, as are the other members of the band. Gigi and Elena, the band's guitarist and violinist, are also a couple. But how complicated is it to balance band life with family life? "The main problem is getting around. Gigi and Elena are lucky enough to live together, and sometimes they get help from their parents or friends. As for the others... well, let's just say our partners are very patient. And it has to be said, it's not so bad taking a couple of days off from parenting either."

Once again, it's a great sign to be able to see and touch firsthand that real Italian music is made of genuine sacrifice, of dreamers with their feet on the ground, of mature and stubborn people who never let go. Perturbazione are another face of that indie scene keeping the name and quality of made in Italy music high: there's still little money to be seen, but no end in sight to the enthusiasm and passion.

(03/10/2010)