port-royal - Post-dance on a planetary scale

A year and a half after our previous meeting, we catch up again with Port-Royal, not long after the release of their third album, “Dying In Time“.

Attilio Bruzzone and Ettore Di Roberto tell us about the genesis of an intricate work, whose countless facets went well beyond a simple rhythmic acceleration of their songs. This engaging exchange is also a chance to look at the international dimension the band has undeniably achieved, and to take a heartfelt look at how music is made and treated in Italy.

As “Afraid To Dance” already hinted, on the new album you pushed further into rhythm without giving up the other traits of your music: has anything changed, though, in the way you wrote and produced it?

From a compositional and production standpoint, “Dying In Time” (2006-2008) flows seamlessly from the past, representing something of the close of a trilogy that began in 2002-2004 with the making of “Flares” and continued with “Afraid To Dance” in 2005-2006. Over these years our way of making records, while obviously evolving especially in the details, has essentially stayed the same: our room, the PC, the synthesizers, the guitars and a few other instruments, tracks piling up in the projects, a huge amount of work on the software and on the various tracks, months and months of reworking the pieces; the initial melodic idea, its variations, further melodic layering and the internal organization of it all, the choice of arrangements…

From the very beginning, first with your releases for Resonant, then through various collaborations around the world, you've carried yourselves as a band geared toward an international dimension. What has your experience and contact with so many foreign artists brought to the record?

Not all that much, to tell the truth, in the sense that we had already shaped our basic aesthetic on our own beforehand (regardless of the encounters that would later occur), and technically we grew on our own as well, without picking up any particular tricks of the trade from people who perhaps had more field experience than us. This means that Port-Royal, as "international" as they are, are actually a fairly sui generis case in this respect. To be clear, that doesn't mean we haven't bonded with plenty of musicians over the years, exchanging opinions, advice and maybe even inspiration, working together or simply talking - quite the opposite, in fact (remixes, collaborations and friendships speak for themselves) - it's just that none of it was decisive for our core aesthetic. More concretely, though, the contacts we've built abroad over the years have certainly made it easier to bring in collaborators on the new record (think especially of the various vocal contributions from Poland and Japan), which have enriched the work and given it further shades of meaning; but it's not a case of sonic revolutions.

You're very popular especially in Eastern Europe: do you notice any differences between how Italian audiences and audiences elsewhere receive you?

Look, as far as the live experience goes, we've often said that the approach of Russian, Polish, Slovak or Yugoslav audiences - or non-Western audiences more generally - is different from what we're used to at our latitudes: people come to shows with fewer inhibitions, they let themselves go (maybe it's also down to the notoriously excessive volumes in venues over there!), and they end up dancing during the more rhythmic moments of our set. It's a really great feeling: everything feels far less analytical and much more spontaneous, which is ultimately how experiencing a concert should be.

What about with critics, though? Could it be that the provincialism which often leads people to praise their compatriots' artists works in reverse in your case? Don't you find it limiting to be judged every time as Italians, rather than simply for the music you make?

Completely agree. Given identical content, our debut would have been reviewed differently by the various specialist magazines - presumably less enthusiastically - had it come out on an Italian label instead of Resonant, or had we been foreign (and still released by a foreign label): we're pretty certain of that. Just as it's equally certain that, from a media standpoint, the "kids from Genoa putting a record out on an English label" angle was played up quite a bit. Even today we sometimes hear fans at our shows complimenting us by saying we don't sound like an Italian band at all... and of course it's natural, and fair enough, to feel a bit "proud" that an Italian indie act is appreciated abroad (and released by foreign labels): there's nothing wrong with that, quite the opposite. It's just that everything shouldn't be reduced to that, or you lose all sense of proportion.

On the other hand, though (and this is a curious thing), certain Italian critics still refuse to see us as the fully international entity we actually are, and seem to say "sure, really good for being Italian... but at the end of the day they're still Italian", as if being Italian were some kind of stain to be redeemed through appreciation and "fame" abroad. This shows that, according to this kind of criticism, you ultimately can't compete with foreign artists simply because you're Italian, and that those foreign artists can only ever remain ahead and on a higher level (but only because they're foreign!); and this is extremely wrong, because it reduces individual talent to a matter of nationality, leading to a whole string of further errors. Take our own case, concretely: plenty of reviewers branded us (wrongly, in our view) as "the Italian Sigur Rós", and there was no shortage of Genoa-Iceland comparisons, which we've always firmly rejected, since we don't feel close to those places or to that music, either aesthetically or existentially. In fact, it's false above all from an aesthetic point of view (while we do respect that Icelandic band, who are also the best thing Iceland has ever produced, we've never been mad about them nor listened to them much, so much so that we've never listed them among our influences), and it's certainly not doing any favours to an up-and-coming band (I'm thinking especially of 2005, when "Flares", our first official album, came out) that also happens to be Italian (and therefore already "unlucky", according to that kind of reasoning, even if it's never said outright) to immediately label it as the Italian (= provincial) version of a famous foreign band (and therefore obviously already better): that's already a way of belittling something from the outset, of cutting it off at the knees right from the start, even though in Italy (as elsewhere, thankfully!) "Flares" was actually very well reviewed, as was "Afraid To Dance" later on. But the question is: why this obsession with comparison, with reducing everything to it, why not think globally instead of automatically viewing anything Italian as inherently inferior and/or incapable of having its own substance without necessarily being a local version of some foreign (global) band? Personally, we don't suffer at all from this inferiority complex towards foreign artists, partly because right from the start we got used to moving in an international context and to recognising what's good regardless of geographic origin.

So we're faced with two opposite types of provincialism that end up converging on the same mistake: one of perspective and lack of objectivity. One is "traditional" but more honest: the closed-off kind, belonging to those who only take part in their own small local scene (Italian, in this case) and their own little patch, without considering anything immediately outside it; and the other is sneakier, disguised and ultimately hypocritical - what we call "complex-ridden provincialism", which consists of praising everything that comes from outside simply because it's "other" and distant as such (precisely because it comes from elsewhere), while reducing everything that is instead close, local and Italian (that is, what one actually is!) to a necessarily (i.e. a priori) unlucky and derivative version of whatever is foreign: whoever suffers from this kind of provincialism thinks that by running down their own origins and output they'll eventually manage to rise to that longed-for foreign level (which very often doesn't even match reality!) they feel inferior to, to become "international" rather than provincial, but ironically they achieve nothing but the exact opposite. This, however, is a discourse that doesn't just concern the musical field, but every manifestation of Italian-ness, and if there's one thing that is truly, specifically Italian, for us it's exactly this: falling into one of these two kinds of provincialism, even though, sadly, they are in part also generated by actual real-world conditions.

To wrap up: in the end it's precisely these people, who complain about provincialism while being provincial to the nth degree themselves, who make Italy a provincial country in musical terms too, because while it's true that Italy (musically as well) still lags behind some European countries and America, it's equally true that it's picking itself up a bit, and that in recent years some fine exceptions have emerged that have nothing to envy in their more famous and celebrated foreign counterparts. And whether people like it or not, that's the truth, plain for all to see.

Obviously, and thankfully, there are also plenty of intelligent critics who don't fall into the mistakes mentioned above: so let's end this question on a note of optimism and positivity!

On "Dying In Time" the contribution of the voices is very noticeable, blending with the atmospheres and almost seeming to sketch out embryonic songs: why this choice? Is it a direction you plan to keep pursuing?

It wasn't a particularly premeditated choice, it just sort of happened as the recording process went on; a few good contacts and the glimpsed possibility of enriching and renewing the palette at our disposal... We still mostly use voices as further instruments, almost like keyboards or guitars twisted out of shape by delay, without letting them dominate the arrangement too much, in a "shoegaze" style, so to speak. We think "the experiment" will continue in the near future too: we've decided to make our collaboration with Japan's Linda Bjalla a stable one - she lent her voice to several tracks on "Dying In Time".

Even though your tracks can't really be considered proper songs, it almost feels like there's an overarching message running through the new record, as well as through your live shows (I'm also thinking of Sieva's videos). On a perceptual level, it feels like something far from superficial, something you can pick up on especially in the "anthem" "Balding Generation": is there such a message, and if so, what is it?

I like calling "Balding Generation (Losing Hair As We Lose Hope)" an anthem! In a way it is one, and if you listen closely you can also hear a male voice (ours) declaiming loudly (though kept in the background) that we are the generation who, along with our hair, are also losing hope, meaning to highlight somewhat the superficiality of this age of "iconomania" (as G. Anders shrewdly called it), where image and appearance matter more than content and substance. But equally, in the later verses it ends on an optimistic note, saying that we're still capable of daring to love and to fall in love despite the despair. So, in a Blochian sense, the positive utopian core emerges precisely out of despairing negativity. Obviously it doesn't come across as so heavily philosophical in the song itself, even though that is the message. As for Sieva's visuals, those are his own personal inspirations, worked out afterwards and with total freedom, but while listening to our tracks. Let's just say that between him and us there's a spontaneous, free convergence that ends up producing a similar kind of imagery.

Point-blank question: how would you define your music today?

Post-dance (the kind for people who are scared to dance but dare to do it anyway) vs. shoegaze ambient (the kind for people who are more introverted and reflective)! Anyway, it's not important how we define our music, but how we make it and how we feel it. So a word of warning to readers: don't take these convenient labels too seriously, but form your own opinion - which doesn't necessarily need to be labelled either...

With “Dying In Time” you achieved a very precise definition of your style: do you feel you've reached your peak?

There's no such thing as an absolute peak, by definition, but there's a grain of truth in what you're saying, at least in terms of how we experience the artistic path we've taken over these years from the inside: with “Dying In Time” we pushed, so to speak, pretty much all the languages that have belonged to us so far to their extreme consequences… It's also an album with which we ventured into new territory; so it's our most ambitious, complex and painstakingly worked record, even though, in a sense, we consider every one of our records the best we've ever made (obviously not in relation to music in general, but to each other!).

I imagine you're already thinking about new music and your upcoming releases: where are Port-Royal headed now?

The million-dollar question! Aside from a couple of “transitional” releases planned for 2010, with material that's already more or less ready, this is indeed the period when we need to start thinking about the new direction for the fourth album. We're not talking about a new direction randomly: it will be a matter of identifying different paths, ones capable of giving us fresh stimuli to move beyond what we achieved with “Dying In Time”, which in a way represented, as we've tried to explain in this interview too, the closing of a cycle. In particular, we'll be looking for both a new modus operandi, a different approach to recording, and a new way of experiencing the substance of composition itself. But we don't want to lose ourselves or cut ties with the past either. So it's difficult. It's impossible to predict now what it will be; we hope everything will come instinctively, even if to some extent we'll need to make deliberate, calculated choices.

By Raffaello Russo (11/01/2009)

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What follows is the second interview given to OndaRock by Genoa's Port-Royal. The line-up consists of Attilio Buzzone on guitar, Michele and Ettore Di Roberto on drums and keyboards respectively, Emilio Pozzolini (keyboards, samplers and drum machine) and Sieva Diamantakos, in charge of visuals. Answering are Attilio, Ettore and Sieva.

Port-Royal, second interview for ondarock.it. Album of the month for May 2007, personal album of the year, praised by both staff and forum members. How do you explain such critical and commercial success, both nationally and internationally? And what's your relationship with the music scene and with critics in Italy?

I think the praise also stems from the fact that, both nationally and internationally, there aren't many bands – also given the lack of a real electronic scene like the German one between the Nineties and the 2000s – who use particularly good or catchy melodies, with the exception of Ulrich Schnauss, and having fitted into this vein we're recognisable for that too. Generally, from what we hear around, people seem to recognise the Port-Royal sound, and we see that as a huge compliment. Our relationship with critics is excellent, too — suffice it to say we've never had a bad review, and even if one came along, so be it. That obviously makes us very happy. Quite often, though, some reviews are a bit superficial, like when people write about us by name-checking Sigur Rós or Explosions In The Sky, and it's the comparison with the latter that makes us think that particular reviewer hadn't even listened to the record. Generally speaking, though, we really can't complain.

How do your tracks come about? What are your sources of inspiration in choosing sounds and samples and arranging them compositionally? Is there something studied and preordained in their genesis, or do they develop more “on the fly”?

Our tracks come about quite spontaneously, they always emerge from a melody, guitar or synth, and never from a structure. Let's say that, generally, when we record we don't worry too much about whether a melody will be liked or not; first of all we think about recording something positive, then when the record starts taking shape – a fairly long process – we start thinking about how to bring out the tracks better, how to make them more appealing. As for the choice of sounds — not music but actual sounds — the ones by Usine or Murcof are excellent. There's nothing studied or preordained in our music, we could say we have an emotional approach, which doesn't mean, though, that there isn't also an important process of rethinking things at the drawing board and reasoning about how to make a track “flow” better.

At the time of “Flares”, among the references you cited, or that were cited about that album, there were many more or less post-rock ones (from Mogwai to Labradford), while “Afraid To Dance” tends to move away from that mould: has something changed in your sensibility or in what you've been listening to?

“Afraid To Dance” is somewhat the summation of our first love for post-rock, understood in our own way and thus stripped of elements like those of Mogwai, Labradford or Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and of ambient, even though electronics were already present on “Flares”. In truth, our listening sensibility hasn't changed at all; if anything, we listen to a lot less music these days and we'd rather put on Rihanna or t.A.T.u. than many bands whose aesthetic is much closer to our own.

The titles of your tracks and the images you project during your live shows are full of references to Mitteleuropa and the former socialist countries: what fascinates you about those places, that culture and iconography? Does it influence your music in any way?

It's my fault (Attilio, ed.) because I'm the one who loves Eastern Europe, given my studies, and I'm convinced that people live better there than in Western Europe, much better. Many of my favourite writers come from those areas and, having visited them, I also have a great passion for their history. Visually, too, we think they're extremely striking and that they suit the music we play very well. Often we give a newly-born track a title that can later change; sometimes the title-track connection is immediate, other times it's something that takes shape over time.

In the Italian independent scene, one sometimes comes across alleged “phenomena”, often surrounded by an aloof, seemingly manufactured aura. You, on the other hand, always seem like down-to-earth guys who just enjoy making music: setting aside the acclaim you've received, are you aware of the quality of what you do?

We're well aware of that, but we always try to give our best without ever settling for what we do. Our greatest achievement is making music that we ourselves like, and that's exactly why we're the harshest critics of our own music. As for the question of simplicity, it seems pretty pathetic to act all high and mighty just because you make music — after all, we're nobody, and there's really no sense in keeping up some air of superiority. That's precisely why it's nice to talk to the people who come to see you, to hear their praise and their criticism. And we really like talking to everyday people, rather than to the so-called "industry experts", who are full of preconceptions and walls.

And speaking of your relationship with the people who appreciate your music, you also have a very specific policy on your Myspace.

Sure, Myspace is a really useful tool precisely because, unlike websites, it lets you interact directly with your listeners. And the fact that we reply, as we do, to everyone who leaves us comments is a deliberate policy, also because it costs nothing. Thanks to this policy, besides building a really good relationship with people, we've also met a lot of great people.

You've taken part in many collaborations, some alongside fairly big names, others with talented but little-known artists. You seem to really enjoy engaging with other artists: which of these collaborations has been the most satisfying for you? Can you point us to any new names to keep an eye on?

We like engaging with other artists, even though we think we have our own well-defined universe. We think it's important not to put up iron curtains or impassable walls, but to be open to everything without ever sacrificing our own specific identity. The remix album experiment was great precisely because it was interesting to see how artists outside our world reinterpreted our songs. Among the most convincing collaborations, there's definitely the one with Millimetrik. The Greek Absent Without Leave, meanwhile, is one of the new names worth keeping an eye on.

Speaking of rampant downloading, you decided to let everyone listen to "Flares" for free. Why did you make that choice? And is it connected to the Radiohead initiative?

It seemed right, for those who started listening to us with "Afraid To Dance", to let them hear our debut. This choice was also made ahead of the April release of the remix album of "Flares", and it seemed fair, given that people download records anyway, to give it away for free and in top quality. As for the Radiohead decision, it didn't influence us in the slightest.

Resonant is shutting down — the obligatory question: a new label?

Resonant is closing because the game wasn't worth the candle anymore, definitely not for financial reasons. We've started looking around for a label for our upcoming records. We've contacted about thirty, but none of them Italian. For now, though, we're trying to focus on the next record, rather than on the label it'll come out on.

You've set me up for the next question: what will the follow-up to "Afraid To Dance" sound like, and when might we expect a release date?

The follow-up is already taking a fairly well-defined shape. We're trying to push the more dance-oriented elements of "Afraid To Dance" even further, without setting aside the more ambient and reflective moments of our mood. It'll sound, at the same time, like a synthesis and a renewal of our previous work. We don't want it to look like a best of made up of tracks from "Flares" and "Afraid To Dance" — we want it to have a life of its own. As for timing, definitely not before 2009, also given the issue of finding a label.

Judging by your live shows, one might think the title "Afraid To Dance" could refer to the audience watching your performances: how do you relate to the physical dimension of your music and to playing live?

The title of our latest album obviously refers to us, but we've noticed that the relationship between the music played at our live shows and the audience's physical reaction changes from country to country, even from city to city. In Russia, for instance, where we sold out — leaving about a hundred disappointed people who'd hoped to get in — at a venue where Mogwai had played, people go wild in an impressive way, dancing like maniacs. In France and Germany, with the exception of shows in the capitals, the concerts are watched in reverent silence. And this, as proof of what I was telling you earlier about the former socialist countries, is a sign of places where there's greater liveliness and vitality. Nietzsche said that an intolerant people is more alive. And that's blatantly true in those countries. Despite the intolerance many of them show towards gay people or people of colour, they then let loose dancing like madmen at concerts.

By Alberto Asquini (14/04/2008)

Ride the wave of great music

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