Teho Teardo - A Journey Through Images and Music

Ahead of his upcoming tour with Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubauten, I had the pleasure of interviewing composer Teho Teardo, from Friuli. A leading figure on the Italian experimental scene for years, he began his prolific career in the 1980s and 90s, both as a solo artist and with Meathead, before a more recent shift that saw him become a true weaver of music and image. This second artistic "life" has made him one of the most admired composers working in film and theatre scores, through a string of enviable collaborations – most notably with Sorrentino on the film "The Idol" (2009), which won him a David di Donatello award. In recent years an artistic partnership – and a close friendship – has grown with Blixa Bargeld, giving rise in 2017 to their fourth album (two LPs and two EPs), to which their upcoming tour is dedicated.

You first worked with Blixa in 2008, collaborating on the theatre piece "Ingiuria". Beyond the personal friendship, what do you think Blixa has genuinely added to your music?

With Blixa there's a very close human and professional relationship that has somehow allowed us both to expand our horizons – an openness that I think holds true for both me and him. The fact that after so many years we're still here proves it.

You've worked extensively on film music with many different directors. The bond between music and image is very close – how much do you think cinema owes to music? Can you imagine Sergio Leone, for instance, without Ennio Morricone?

The answer is very simple: try watching the films I've worked on without the music, and you'll immediately understand just how complementary music and cinema are. There's a truly tight kinship between music and image, one that has always been inseparable.

In an interview together, you and Blixa said that black is your favourite colour, which is also where the name "Nerissimo" for your LP comes from. What does it mean to be "dark" today – do you mean it as an expressive style, a personality trait, or a melancholic outlook on the world?

Definitely not, we can't be pigeonholed into any dark movement whatsoever. We like to enjoy life. There's no expression of a melancholic view of reality in our music. We're far removed from existential themes and from dark, decadent sonorities.

What's your relationship with your younger self – when you listen back to your work from the '90s, do you recognise yourself in it, or does it feel like a completely different world?

I recognise myself completely, it really is a continuous path, one also made up of contradictions. It's part of anyone's journey: you make mistakes, change direction, try again, go back, reconsider. It's all connected. I recognise myself in my records from the '90s: even when I listen to an old Meathead record, I find myself in there, it's always me.

Do you think music needs to have a close bond with the present, including with events outside of it – war, political or social issues? Is the artist bound to their own time, or should they go beyond that temporal limit?

I think that simply talking about your own experience, even while staying within a strictly personal context, can make music so personal that it becomes political. So a musician's point of view can have a political impact even without doing so explicitly.

Blixa is self-taught, and you've said you were never interested in gathering dust in a conservatory. Do you think excessive academicism is a limit on individual creativity and artistic freedom?

I did try to get into a conservatory, but they didn't take me (laughs). I don't think it's a limitation of individual freedom – for some people it works perfectly well that way. Everyone should be free to follow whatever suits them best.

I meant whether having too many rules in an academy could also be a limitation.

I don't think so, there are plenty of rules in our music too.

I don't want to ask you the usual question about your musical influences, especially since you rightly object to the excessive genre-pigeonholing that music journalists usually engage in. I would like to know, though, how much other art forms affect your ideas — cinema, painting or theatre, for example.

Other art forms have influenced me enormously! I studied Art History, I never had the chance to study Music History or do any traditional musical training. I graduated in Art History and I consider that my musical education. In some way, other art forms taught me a great deal about music, far more than I could ever have imagined. I don't think it's a coincidence that I've worked so much in theatre and film, because the relationship with the visual is fundamental to me.

Your new tour starts in Bergamo on May 4th.

Yes, we're starting now, we have three dates in Italy (Bergamo, Udine and Turin), then we go to Germany and Spain. We keep touring with “Fall", the last album we released, which also includes the cover of Neil Young's “Hey Hey My My”. We really love playing live. We play the whole LP. We'll keep touring like this until we start bringing in new songs and a new record. We still don't know when the next album will come out. We release records when they're ready. We don't have a rule, a deadline or a contract to answer to. We're free, our own masters.

You mentioned freedom — I see so many artists who often forget the privilege they have, and end up becoming slaves to success, to sales, or to record labels.

By now most record labels don't even exist anymore, so you're left facing yourself with no more excuses. You can no longer complain that the label didn't work hard enough for a project. You're alone in front of your own fate, with no mitigating circumstances. All things considered, I think it's better this way.

Are you saying that artists today are freer than they were twenty or thirty years ago?

No, that's not what I said. Freedom is something you choose to have. You could just as easily decide you don't want it, in order to do something else.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google