Psycho Kinder - Alive and invisible

The Psycho Kinder project, active since 2009, was born from an idea by vocalist and lyricist Alessandro Camilletti, and is essentially the moniker under which the artist from Macerata expresses his sonic art, balanced between post-punk, philosophy, spoken word and avant-garde. Lyrics steeped in metaphysical assumptions, inner catharsis, pragmatism and postmodern disenchantment, accompanied by an electro-wave embrace that takes no prisoners, embody a noble and uncommon artistic spirit. After the debut in 2014 and an even darker and more claustrophobic second album, Camilletti decided to reshape his hallucinations into an extended (and remixed) version of his tracks, with touches from illustrious guests of the caliber of Andrea Chimenti, Lisfrank and Carnera. We caught up with him for an interview in which he best defines his mission, touching on philosophical concepts, immediate future projects and a series of clear-eyed views on contemporary life.

It's been about nine years since you started the Psycho Kinder project. What's happened in this decade?

I think the project has followed a natural evolution, gradually maturing both in the lyrics, which remain the central element, and in the music and production. The approach stays the same as ever: I only write and conceive a new work when I'm inspired. Since I don't have contracts to honor or trends to chase, I can work with total freedom. Over time the collaborations have multiplied, allowing me to range more widely, especially in the electronic field. Along this now decade-long journey, I have to mention some fundamental fellow travelers: Giorgio Mozzicafreddo, with whom the project was born, Michele Caserta, who handled the arrangements, recordings and mixing of many tracks, Luca Barchiesi, Ali Salvioni and Giovanni Leonardi, musicians with whom the chemistry has always been incredible, Marco "El Topo" Luchetti, who created six covers, and Francesco Pirro (Celery Price), who for "ExTension" remixed "2009", curated the artwork and made two videos. It was also stimulating to take part in a couple of works ("Mastice" and "Morire") by Fabrizio Testa, an experience that culminated in the EP "Free Camilletti!", released a couple of years ago. An ironic, playful seal on our partnership.

Your music reveals a constant neurotic tension, an explosive mix of darkwave and impressionistic synth-rock. Musically speaking, where does your project come from, and what drew you toward these dystopian, damnably anxiety-inducing sounds?

Joy Division, Death In June, Franco Battiato and Cccp were probably the artists who most inspired the atmospheres and sounds of the first part of our output. Psycho Kinder was born essentially as a personal escape route from social conventions, from the suffocating rhythms of everyday life. My love of life and of authentic relationships makes me feel out of place in a society that's increasingly homogenized and superficial. A society that, as Calasso says, thinks it can resolve everything within itself, definitively giving up on the invisible. Everything is created and dies a moment later. This, in my view, is the true root of nihilism, even when it wears a smiling face.

After two albums released between 2014 and 2016, you finally gave definitive shape to your past songs through a multi-hand remix project, with outstanding guests like Kill Your Boyfriend, Deca, Degada Saf and Andrea Chimenti: all together, passionately, for localized, intoxicating and in some ways definitive transformations of a model that was already, in itself, extremely focused on celebrating a kind of organized stylistic chaos, at times following very specific electronic and analog cues. How did the choice of these collaborations/reworkings come about? Where did you step in, and where did you instead let each collaborator shape things freely?

"ExTension" is tension renewed by the hands of artists I admire greatly and feel close to, not just musically. With this project I tried to bring out the value of several symbolic tracks from our output, giving only one instruction: total freedom to transfigure the songs. To the spoken-word deliveries of Valerio Zecchini and Andrea Chimenti, two unique and very different voices, I entrusted the opening and closing of the circle, letting them bring out the words of "Nel caos dell'ecumene" and "Essere", which I consider two key texts of our project. I'm very satisfied with the final result of each individual reworking, and with the wholehearted spirit of participation everyone brought to it.

Solchi Sperimentali Discografici: how did the collaboration with Cresti come about?

Antonello and I have known each other since 2010 and we see each other often. When his essay on industrial and apocalyptic folk, "Lucifer Over London", came out, I went to Florence, simply as a fan, to chat with him, and later I interviewed him for the webzine Raw & Wild. The following year we crossed paths again at the Villa Festival, where Sol Invictus and Sieben performed. Then, over the years, our meetings became more and more frequent, and a relationship of friendship and mutual esteem developed. The Rete dei Solchi Sperimentali network (which includes music essays, the film of the same name, and the label that co-produced "ExTension"), of which Cresti is the main driving force, deserves praise for the cultural value it expresses and for promoting wide-ranging, non-aligned artistic individualities.

Your lyrics are generally packed with significant philosophical references, inner passages laid out at times with real nonchalance, as with the turmoil of "Un uomo". Is there hope in this cursed, hyper-accelerated world, ever more digitalized and vain beyond all human measure, driven by turbo-capitalism?

I was an avid reader of Nietzsche (the track culminates in the recitation of a passage from "Ecce Homo") when I wrote "Un uomo", which remains, in any case, an essentially autobiographical piece. I don't make predictions, I tend to have a cyclical view of history. Aberrations will always exist, just as will the breaking points from which new, illuminating experiences can be born. Right now, unfortunately, there's no way out in sight from the economic development model we're living in. Western thought (global by now) has put technology at the helm of society.

In "Oltre il tempo" you try to push beyond the horizons. You speak of worlds collapsing, various hells, spirits tyrannizing the truth. Carlo Rubbia, responding to Massimo Fini some years ago, described this world as a train that, by its own internal logic, can no longer stop and is forced to keep accelerating. So it almost seems inevitable that sooner or later it will crash...

Nature is already presenting the bill for this "acceleration", with the climate alterations and other environmental imbalances we're witnessing. I fear that without a different collective awareness, things can only change through catastrophic events. "Oltre il tempo" is precisely about this, and in its finale it calls for recovering the lost relationship with nature, and therefore with the sacred.

Are the hallucinations of "Viaggio allucinato" attempts to escape from forced compression, or just another way to exorcise one's widespread unease?

"Viaggio allucinato" is a tragicomic snapshot of the present day, in which reflections on the malaise of living take on a tone that's more ironic than speculative.

In the track "La coerenza della follia" (from the album "Il tramonto dell'evidente") a commanding tribute to Emanuele Severino comes to the fore. What connects you to the great philosopher from Brescia?

I consider Emanuele Severino a giant of philosophy and, above all, an open, multifaceted intellectual, not merely an academic. A few years ago I sent him a copy of the album "Il tramonto dell'evidente" along with a short note, and he very kindly wrote back, thanking me for the tribute. The eternity of every being, as opposed to the Greek notion of becoming — which for the philosopher is the very essence of nihilism — is a concept I've explored in depth with great interest.

“La vita ci illude, ci irride e ci seduce/ e a volte ci mostra nel chiarore di una penna/ l’eterno conflitto dell’indivisibile/ in cui l’uomo si smarrisce” (from “Essere”). Where does philosophy begin and where does music end?

With Psycho Kinder I often try to merge the two things through a form of poetic writing. Recently, critic Piero Scaruffi, interviewed by Francesco Nunziata, was asked “What exactly do you think of when you think of 'classical music'?” and he replied “I think of poetry and philosophy”. I find this definition interesting, even though I don't agree with many of the statements Scaruffi has made about music.

In your view, who is the most “philosophical” singer-songwriter in our musical tradition?

Franco Battiato.

What are your future plans?

A few months ago a very intense collaboration began with Deca. The fruit of this new partnership will be the album “Diario ermetico”, due out by the end of 2018.

Can you give us a preview? Some lyrics, perhaps?

Gladly: ““L’ultimo uomo/ Griderà nel deserto/ E la sua voce/ Fermerà il mondo/ Disperso il fumo/ Tutto apparirà/ Come sempre è stato/ Dimora necessaria”.

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