Redrum Alone - Mediterranean cyber-pop

Redrum Alone have come a long way since last year, when we flagged their “De Redrum Natura” as one of the most interesting Italian electronic releases of recent years. Some have kept digging into the huge potential of their sound, some have booked them on their bill (Budapest’s Sziget Festival), and others have gone as far as calling them – to the duo’s own protests – the “Daft Punk of Italy”. All proof of a growing reputation, which culminated in their headline show on January 3 of this year at Circolo Magnolia in Milan. It was on that very occasion that Tommaso Danisi aka Qzerty caught up with us to answer a few questions and give us a quick rundown of the lightning-fast, dazzling rise he has shared with his friend Piero “Peet” Pappalettere.

You’ve just wrapped up what is perhaps your first big-scale show: how did it go?

The live show at Magnolia wasn’t our first big show, but it’s without a doubt one of the most successful: the sound system sounds amazing, the lights are cool, and the crowd danced and had a blast. It was also a chance to meet some friends from the local scene, like Digitalica and Il Leprotto, who worked with us on our remix album.

Do you feel your music is better suited to the live dimension or to the studio?

Let's say we have a live approach even when we're working on our tracks in the studio: less is more.

The first time you sent us a promo you were "one among many": now you've played at Magnolia. All this in less than a year. Did you expect such a rapid rise?

You work hard for years and then everything suddenly comes together and bears fruit, in a very short time. At first it feels strange, but then, thinking about it, you realize it's just the natural course of things.

Where did it all start? How did Redrum Alone come about?

I met Piero by chance in 2006, we shared the same passion for machines and started nurturing it at home. When it felt mature enough to show to friends and family, we took it onto a stage, then another, and another. We've done a lot of touring... luckily we travel light when it comes to backline.

Does the title of the album mean "fully expressing your nature", or is there some further reference?

The title "De Redrum Natura" is just a play on words, we liked the idea of hacking Lucretius's De Rerum Natura. We don't think our debut album fully expresses our nature, we simply felt, at a certain point, the need to take stock of three years of work.

Most of your songs are sung in English: on the record, only "Emilia paranoica", which you closed the show with, takes the path of Italian. What's behind this choice, and do you plan to keep doing occasional songs in Italian?

Without overthinking it, English seemed like the language best suited to the electronic genre, also with the intention of trying to take our music beyond national borders. With "Emilia Paranoica", though, we made an exception because the idea of covering a post-punk classic was too exciting to pass up.

What are your musical reference points, if you have any?

Among many: John Carpenter, The Knife, Cristiano Malgioglio.

How do you split the roles when writing songs? And how do you divide up the instruments, both live and in the studio?

For the studio it's complicated. For live shows we decided to split tasks and instruments like a "real" band: I handle the basslines, Piero handles the vocals and lead parts. The electronic drums do everything else.

On that note, what instruments do you mainly use in your tracks?

Posso solo dirti: “No guitars were used in making these tracks” (cit.)

In the Italian electronic scene you're something decidedly "new", something that in my opinion was needed to "shake things up" a bit — something your music does brilliantly. What do you think?

I think the Italian electronic scene is not stagnant at all, but it certainly doesn't have the resonance it deserves.

Is there any Italian producer or musician you appreciate in the electronic field?

There are quite a few names: from Orax to Iori's Eyes to Offlaga. We also appreciate and respect everyone featured on the remix compilation, and we invite everyone to discover them by downloading it for free from our site redrumalone.com.

Generally speaking, why do you think that in Italy, for a musician working with electronic music, breaking through is often much harder than it is, say, in France or Germany – not to mention the UK or the US?

Honestly, in Italy it seems extremely difficult to break through in general, unless you take the shortcut of talent shows. The paradox is that electronic music belongs to Italy far more than other genres imported from the Anglo-Saxon world. I'm thinking of italo-disco in the '70s, Italian new wave, and even the house wave of the '90s, which we were part of as one of its protagonists.

What are your plans for the near future?

We're currently working on our new show, built around visual mapping created by vj Enz Diniz. We premiered this new live set at Medimex in Bari last November.

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