Petrolio - At the feet of a black drone

Enrico Cerrato is the mastermind behind Petrolio, a project that since its 2017 debut has released some of the most mature works on our country's dark-ambient-drone-industrial scene. Already active in metal (Infection Code) and jazz (Moksa), Cerrato launched Petrolio in 2015, a project in which, alongside the musical references already mentioned, he never loses sight of music's bond with cinema. Here's our interview.

Hi Enrico, great to meet you — I first came across you several years ago when you opened for Lingua Ignota in Milan in 2019, an experience I'll struggle to forget. The Petrolio project was born in 2015, but your career as a musician started earlier, with other bands. Can you tell us something about your first steps?

Hi Valerio, and thanks for sharing your questions with me. That show opening for Lingua Ignota was an incredible artistic moment on an emotional level, helped along by the splendid setting of Macao. My first steps, like for many musicians I meet at my shows, began with studying an instrument — in my case the electric bass — followed by an approach to electronics and its gadgets, synthesizers and noise machines. I played in several bands, starting out with metal covers, then came my first records in the industrial field, up to the noise-jazz contaminations of the Moksa project.

At a certain point you began working with instrumental music, dark-ambient, avant-garde. How did this idea come about, and what's your preferred definition of your music?

It all began by inserting samples into the structures of the songs I was writing with the bands I played in. That passion grew until, for family reasons, I had to give up the routine of rehearsal-room sessions to run a project on my own; that's where the idea came from to create Petrolio and start my own research, aiming to build a musical identity that drew on my darkest background.

On your official website I read that "Petrolio is a project with strong cinematic connotations". Can you tell us more about that?

Right from my first show I wanted to enrich my music with projected images, in order to tell my own personal vision of reality. That's how the "concert for the extreme outskirts" was born, which accompanied me through Petrolio's early period. This kind of scoring of visions, produced and curated personally, has made my project deeply connected to filmmaking, to the point that it later led to collaborations with film and theatre directors.

Your first LP came out in 2017 ("Di cosa si nasce"), while in 2023 you'd already released a soundtrack ("Respira") and a new LP ("Una guerra di soldatini"). How has your project evolved over these years?

My project has evolved mainly by following a path aimed at pushing certain sonorities to their extreme limits; this research has taken shape through solo productions and collaborations with electronic and non-electronic artists alike. In 2022 Shyrec released "Disobedience", a work born out of a compositional experience for a theatre performance, and in 2023 I worked on the release of "Respira", put out by Diodrone and Toten Schwan, music that's part of a short film directed by the late AkAb, and on the record made in collaboration with Marcho Gronge, a multifaceted artist with hugely significant artistic experience, titled "Una guerra di soldatini".

Was there one musician in particular who gave you the push and the desire to delve into this musical genre?

Two musicians in particular: Lorn and Ben Frost. I can't cite them as a direct source for Petrolio, but I've been following their stylistic research for some years now, work strongly marked by a unique, personal style.

I've always liked the choice of the name "Petrolio" too. Is there a reference to Pasolini, or are there other reasons behind it?

Absolutely, the reference to Pier Paolo Pasolini's work "Petrolio" is no coincidence, it's a tribute to an artist unique within the Italian artistic landscape; but the main reference, in particular, is to the viscosity, the density and the dark colour of this organic liquid, which seemed to me the natural element closest to my musical research and to the result I wanted to achieve through the use of saturation and distortion applied to my electronics.

You have quite a substantial live activity. How is the reception abroad? In Italy, on the other hand, do you feel there's more wariness towards experimental music, or don't you notice any real difference?

Abroad, there's usually a lot of respect for Italian artists making experimental and electronic music; many of the key reference points in this field are Italian, and there's always a lot of attention paid to how creative, original works come out of our country. Actually, thinking back to the shows I've played in Italy, and in southern Italy especially, I have wonderful memories, and I've never really noticed big differences in the audience's attitude. Generally, listeners everywhere are driven by great curiosity, even in settings more "used to" certain kinds of sounds.

Let's keep talking about your cinematic references. Are there any directors or film composers you feel particularly drawn to?

When it comes to cinema I'm omnivorous; from French to German film, I especially love the colours and the Mitteleuropean storytelling. If I have to name one filmmaker I've stayed attached to, it's Kieślowski and his "Decalogue". More recently, I found the pairing of theme and Ben Frost's soundtrack in the TV series "Dark" really fascinating. Among film composers, I particularly love Hans Zimmer and our own Teho Teardo.

Can you tell us about your upcoming projects?

During the Covid period, like many other artists, I built up a backlog of material, which has been slowly worked through due to the long lead times for pressing physical records; this autumn/winter, the album made in collaboration with Arbeit of Einsturzende Neubauten, "Estadio Nacional", should finally see the light of day, and I'll start working on a new Petrolio album.

The photos used are by Andrea Pesce, Anna Bechis, Demetrio Cecchitelli and Mattia Angelini

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