Valerio Cosi - Cosi dell'altro mondo

More than just a promising young talent, Valerio Cosi is an established presence in Italy's avant-garde scene. His music inhabits a territory all its own, where influences and listening habits are metabolized and reworked into a sound that is at once epiphanic and estranging. A sound that acts like an "aleph" looking back at the past, yet driven by a spasmodic urge toward experimenting with new forms.

In this interview he tells us about the evolution of his story, from his beginnings to his collaborations with other musicians, passing through his past and present listening habits. Over to you.

So Valerio, I'd like to start our chat with your listening habits, which range from avant-rock to free jazz, through certain strands of Italian avant-garde up to musique concrète. What strikes me most is precisely this breadth of vision despite your young age. What were your musical paths? How and when did you start approaching this kind of music?

I started discovering and listening to jazz during my middle school years. I remember my friend/mentor Enzo Franchini introduced me to John Coltrane almost by chance. It was the classic "A Love Supreme". I played saxophone, and after hearing Coltrane's music I had such a huge revelation that I devoted all my time to studying contemporary jazz and, later, improvised jazz (the infamous "free jazz").

A few years later, my listening habits began to expand further, and I slowly started delving into the musical underground of the late '90s-early 2000s, a thriving and imposing scene... and my mind truly took off! From post-rock to Four Tet, from the prog-rock I listened to as a kid (one band above all, Genesis) to jazz. In short, I felt like a god.

My dream in the drawer was precisely the desire to make different kinds of music cross paths in a natural and extremely compelling way, and I believe that dream is still, even now, the primary goal to pursue in my compositional work.

Right, on that note I'd like to understand how your compositional process works. Do you work starting from the saxophone lines, or do you first build what surrounds them (be it drones, electronic parts, etc.)?

I first develop an idea for a piece that arises and takes shape around sax lines, often developed in the form of a loop... or based on rhythmic structures ("Hoboland", "Making Love In Lhasa"). Around them, I slowly and gradually create everything that then gives life to the piece (drones, interweaving motifs, electronics). I often find myself using "found sounds" within my pieces, but generally I place the sax first as the principal instrument that kicks everything else off.

What's your relationship with improvisation? It seems to me that your way of improvising has the warmth and instinctiveness of American free jazz rather than the mathematical rigidity of its European counterpart. How much of your music is cerebral, and how much instinctive?

Improvisation plays a fairly important role, but to tell the truth, I feel very schematic and calculating in the compositional phase. So I'd say I'm a strongly cerebral person.

As for the free nature of it, well, yes, I have to admit I feel very "American" (America is a continent you love for its multifaceted culture and its ineffable melting pot of music) but always with an eye on Europe (with strong references to Massimo Urbani and Lol Coxhill).

There's a strong avant-rock imprint running through your work (sturdy rhythmic structures, almost post-punk bass lines, etc.) - I'm thinking for instance of a composition like "Proud (To Be Kraut) - A Burning Om – Reprise". It's almost as if you wanted to give a personal reinterpretation of it through the peculiar lens of your sound.

Yes, that's exactly right. What I like most is revisiting a "historic" sound as a carefree reprogrammer, without pretentious revisionism. I always try to avoid the trap of revisionism, which can be highly damaging for a musician in some cases. I have to admit that the tracks you mentioned draw heavily on certain kraut-rock (Neu! and LA Düsseldorf), and a title like "Proud (To Be Kraut)" is to be read purely and exclusively in an ironic light.

How do you relate to electronics? Or rather, what's the relationship between the electronic elements and the "played" parts in the overall economy of your music? Do you see it purely as a tool that lets you enrich the sound with new nuances, or as an important element in the structure of the compositions itself?

My relationship with electronics is strong, and above all, it's precisely the use of electronics that lets me achieve the results I set out to achieve in my compositions. The played parts, in my view, should float in all their sonic integrity, as lightly as possible, within the great cauldron (or treatment) of "cut-and-paste."

Electronics is definitely a unique and important tool in my output. My musical background is deeply "self-taught" on the electronic side, going back to the early 2000s.

So let's talk a bit about your records, starting with "Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock". First of all, I'm curious about the dedication of the first track to Roberto Donnini. What can you tell me about his "Tunedless"?

I discovered "Tunedless" by chance, thanks to a dear friend of mine. It's a vinyl released in the Eighties on Roberto Donnini's small Florentine label, Lynx. I believe the original vinyl can still be found at Soundohm (?). It's a work that's mysterious at times, but with decidedly unique qualities within minimalist music. There are other musicians who collaborate with Roberto on the album. "Tunedless" is mainly a two-part composition (one per side) that follows a "circular" pattern of repeating notes over a droning tone in A. The mystical-esoteric quality you breathe in throughout the album is unique in Italian contemporary music!

"Study For Saxophone And Electronics" doesn't retrace Donnini's work at all, it pays homage to it in a light-hearted way… it's actually a track that feels an urgent need to reconnect with a homegrown past and its mystical roots (Roberto) in a new and aesthetically "contemporary" way.

Talking about the record, I mentioned Lino "Capra" Vaccina, Luciano Cilio, Giusto Pio, for their ability to open themselves up to the most disparate languages. Do you feel in some way an heir to that tradition? If there is one, what's the common thread linking your music to theirs?

I don't think I feel like an "heir" to these musicians, in the sense that their mission and their musical and inner search feel very far removed and very different from where I am now.

I do realize, however, that some elements of my music could easily bring to mind Vaccina's music, if I also think of Aktuala… I think it's not at all easy to relate to those people.

The "common thread" between me and them might be the desire to strap on wings and fly boldly upward, in an Italy held back by cultural inertia, where getting to know truly beautiful things has become seriously impossible.

Tell me about "The North Pole Vibes" - it conveys a sense of almost mystical ecstasy…

"The North Pole Vibes" is one of the saddest tracks I've ever happened to record. I remember that to generate the piercing sensation of "polar cold" within the track, I boosted the high frequencies a great deal.

R. Keenan Lawler was supposed to add his resonator guitar, but that never happened...

I also find the track a bit unsettling in its sonic spectrality...

How did the contact with Brad Rose of Digitalis Industries come about, and in general, do you feel your music is akin to the label's other productions? I mean, do you feel close in some way to weird music?

The contact with Brad Rose was very casual, I got close to him thanks to my friend R. Keenan Lawler. Brad listened to my first recorded material and was amazed by it. That's how, in 2006, the limited edition of "Immortal Attitudes" came out on Foxglove... My relationship with Brad Rose is made of mutual esteem and respect.

"Weird music" has some exhilarating moments, truly talented people! I don't feel akin to this scene, though I find it very interesting all the same...

Tell me about the collaborations with Uton and Fabio Orsi. I consider "We Could For Hours" with Orsi the most successful one...

My album with Uton remains one of the most mysterious, and it would seem, from a "spiritual" point of view, in sharp contrast with the fairly fun friendship that Jani and I have.

With Fabio, on the other hand, there are very specific goals, particular targets. There's really an insistent sonic research, and there's also a lot of dialogue. Fabio loves hyper-stretched textures enormously, and then, well ahead of the recording process, he zeroes in on exactly what he wants for an album.

Have you signed with Porter Records? Here too, did they come looking for you? And what's brewing for 2009?

Not much for now, really not much.

I'm thinking about/studying/preparing a solo CD, which will probably come out in 2010. I don't feel ready yet to talk about this future work.

Again in 2009 there will be "Apulian Skyline" for A Silent Place, a psychedelic collection of oldies pulled out of the drawer plus remixes (an operation not unlike "Collected Works"), plus a couple of other collaborations in the works (a project with Brad Rose, called Oriente Lux, and finally a record made together with Dawid Szczesny).

Also, I'd be very keen to talk with a label about pressing "Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock" (released on CD by Digitalis Recordings) as a double LP. For more information, contact me by email.

Dreamsheep is your personal label. What need does its creation respond to? Can you give me a quick rundown of the works released so far?

Dreamsheep answers the need to leave an additional mark on the music scene. For me, Dreamsheep was a long-held dream in a drawer, which has now fortunately become reality.

The catalogue was born in spring 2008 with two particularly "wild" cd-r releases: a Klangmutationen live album called “Liturgie” and an alienating, brutal jam between Ryan Jewell/ C.Spencer Yeh/ Wasteland Jazz Unit (sonic reference points: Aufgehoben, Laddio Bolocko, Mainliner…).

Towards the end of 2008, I put out three “official” albums, including a “huge” double cd by American multi-instrumentalist/drummer Hexlove (“Pija Z Bogiem”), Ajilvsga – “Medicine Bull” (Ajilvsga is a visionary project by Brad Rose/Nathan Young with doom-drone atmospheres, mastering by Pete Swanson, ex-Yellow Swans), and finally the Finnish trio Black Motor with “Vaarat Vastukset” (try picturing the classic Organic Music Society records as a soundtrack for Aki Kaurismaki's films).

In the coming months: the extraordinary debut of Afternoon Brother (a band that will be on everyone's lips in the months ahead) with “Modern Florida”, and a beautiful project by Hexlove (drums)/Carson McWhirter (piano) called Chant Oh’s.

What are you listening to these days?

I spend much of my days between classical music, plenty of P.S.F. Records cds (among which the recent Iro and Aural Fit stand out), and countless releases put out by Sublime Frequencies.

Ride the wave of great music

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