Destination Morgue V

The new year opened with the fifth edition of one of the most important events on the Italian industrial music calendar. With a line-up that brought together the historic side of the scene (Sigillum S), the controversial and esoteric (Teatro Satanico), the cinematic allure of (Macelleria Mobile di Mezzanotte) and the radical (No Lights for Tomorrow), the crowd that packed into Rome's Closer venue had every reason to be excited and curious.

Marked by a rare and surprising cross-generational appeal, the audience brought together fans of different eras, many of whom had also come for the presentation of the book "Rumori Sacri" (published by Kali Yuga), which chronicles the story of four essential bands of the industrial-noise scene: Atrax Morgue, Rosemary's Baby, Ain Soph and Sigillum S.

The venue chosen for the event has a naturally claustrophobic charm, an enormous, dimly lit underground cube that heightened the obsessive, diseased quality of the sounds. The set list and the changeover between acts ran uninterrupted, fast and seamless, keeping the mental flow at least consistent throughout.

After the tribute to the rawest, most stripped-down death industrial courtesy of No Lights for Tomorrow, MMM (Macelleria Mobile di Mezzanotte) switch on the neon lights with their smoky, swinging noir sound, decked out in fetish masks and 1950s outfits, in a cut-up between Fellini and Clive Barker. A highly theatrical show, in which frontman Adriano Vincenti continually reworks his persona, shifting from crooner to sadistic maniac.

A different kind of communication and symbolism is used by Teatro Satanico, rich in references to alchemical studies, paganism, and Crowley-tinged esotericism. A concrete yet fluid fusion of hard, complex electronic rhythms and cryptic, unsettling lyrics, which exploded into tension on "Confesso Tutto!", "Mann Frau Gott" and "Disco Cianciulli".

The last act of the night, Sigillum S, revealed the possibilities and the new face of the post-industrial concept, giving rise to mantras and multi-layered compositions that took over the surrounding space entirely. The audience's neural capacity was completely absorbed by the deconstruction and reconstruction of noise.

No space was left empty.

Destination Morgue proved to be an idea with its own history and identity, as Alessandro Marchettini (organizer and sole member of No Lights For Tomorrow) explains: "The first edition of Destination Morgue dates back to 2004, and was held at the old Init. At the time, my record label had only recently been launched together with Adriano Vincenti (Macelleria Mobile Di Mezzanotte) [...]. Later on, not on a regular basis but at almost yearly intervals, further editions were staged, widening the roster of bands invited to perform to include other acts not strictly tied to my label, but which nonetheless shared my way of conceiving industrial music. So I can't forget to mention Sektion B, Istitution D.O.L, Maestro Raffaele Cerroni (aka Mushroom's Patience & Dither Craf) and N. (the project of Davide Tozzoli, close friend of the late Marco Corbelli – Atrax Morgue)".

A project that took shape from a strong, precise musical idea.

"In particular, both Adriano and I have always had a special attraction to death industrial, a genre in which Italians, in my opinion, should be considered absolute masters on the world stage [..]. I have the presumption to consider Butcher's House Prod. a worthy representative of the original message that other activists before me have tried to convey: a continuous quest for experimentation without stopping at the usual superficial preconceptions concerning morals, political and social statements, and impositions of any kind. Everything is permitted, everything is allowed".

We also found time to exchange a few words with the bands involved.

Adriano Vincenti tells us how the Macelleria Mobile di Mezzanotte project came about.

"The MMM project was born in 2001, simply as a way of 'musically' expressing and generally expressing my interests. At the time I was listening to a lot of industrial/power electronics music, and I decided to start writing tracks that expressed my varied interests, especially literary ones. This first period began with the founding of the Butcher's House label and comes to a close more or less with the first CD on Old Europa Cafè. Over time my interests decidedly changed, shifting musically towards easy listening and lounge sounds. "Black rubber exotica" is the arrival point of that sensibility, followed by La Dolce vita, an album born after a few years' hiatus. With "L'ultimo vero bacio" from 2007 I marked a watershed between what MMM used to be and what it must and will be".

There's both a research-driven approach and a kind of theatrical parody in MMM's music, in the way it blends noir/hardboiled with true crime.

"The criminal aspect of the project is tied to a strong imagery, which I always try to build through sound and aesthetics. In music and in various aspects of life I look for a decidedly retro taste. So when crime is evoked, it's always on an aesthetic level, never a real one. We draw on Hard Boiled fiction and Noir literature, especially American Noir of the 1940s and '50s. Alongside crime, what we want to bring out is love, seen in its all-consuming, doomed dimension; the feeling of defeat that the films and novels of that era were so good at expressing. This imagery condenses into the images we use: femmes fatales in satin and black nylon lost in the fog; shadows on street corners; fedoras, brilliantine and revolvers. Only jazz and swing, in my view, manage to express this... and to that desperate vision I add noise. Imagine a black-and-white photo of two lovers embracing; it's old, and you found it outside an old club behind Via Veneto. The photo is stained with blood, and you think of us".

A photograph that is now about to be developed again, with new shades.

"The new record will come out in March on Old Europa Cafe, the label that gave birth to MMM and the one I always turn back to whenever I emerge from the fog (Rodolfo Protti's patience is much appreciated). It will be the record of the turning point, a warm and intense sound, far less noisy and much more 'played'.

For the first time I'll be using a clean vocal, and I've also brought in an acoustic drum kit played by Fabiano Getuli, as well as electric guitars played by Simone Porto (Profile), plus some brass. I also collaborated with Satanismo Calibro 9, Division S, Selaxon Lutberg, and Newclear Wave, people I have great respect for, some of whom are close friends of mine. It will probably turn out to be a softer album than the previous ones. A record with a bitter flavour, evoking smoky nightclubs lost in time, somewhere between Los Angeles, Naples and Marseille. Only for men with brilliantine and black suits, and women in long black gloves. Dedicated to everything we've lost, and to everything we'll go on losing".

Finally, Devis and Kalamun of Teatro Satanico also gave us some interesting, complex answers, worthy of a project that has grown in artistic depth since 1993.

Let's start by talking about words - the word theatre and the word magic. Two founding elements of your project, wrapping around both its conceptual and compositional side. Where did these words start from, and how have they evolved for you up to today?

"According to some anthropologists, such as Turner, author of 'From Ritual to Theatre', theatre has its roots in shamanic practices that were gradually forgotten over time. Just as many philologists take for granted the well-known Nietzschean hypothesis that theatre derives from ancient Dionysian cults. [..]

Crowley, definitely the best-known magician of the 20th century, but also a poet and writer, used to spell the word magic with a final K, "Magick", so as to avoid any risk of the term being understood as a conjuring show. [..] This is a series of quick suggestions to make you notice how theatre and magic are elements that come together and get entangled in the chaotic upheaval of practice, outside any presumed evolutionary scheme. But also outside any preconception. [..] By magic we don't mean that bric-a-brac made of candelabras, hoods, incense, pentagrams, etc. We're not interested in superstitions or silly stereotypes. What interests us are ideas, and the practice that these ideas are the fruit of".

Teatro Satanico is also a work of language manipulation... how do records as different as "Pan ist tod" and "Kali Yuga" come about compared to your 1993 debut? What literary, musical and other elements did they break them down from?

"It's language itself that manipulates us. Or rather, it would take just a rough grasp of some basic notions of analytic philosophy to understand how language harbors those very mechanisms by which we human beings perceive one and the same identical world as a varied, multifaceted, kaleidoscopic confusion. [..].

Our output has always had a tendency, more or less pronounced, toward the conceptual. If years ago this trait sometimes went unnoticed, it's probably undeniable in our more recent work, such as "Pan è Morte" and "Kali Yuga a go-go" that you mentioned. But the point is that it's not as if we've become more conceptual over time. [..] Teatro Satanico has always been careful to put forward work that appeals more to the brain than to the gut of its listeners. Even a track like "Confesso tutto!", from 1993, conceals far more references to very serious themes such as the depersonalization and alienation of the individual in contemporary society. What seems like an amused true-crime anecdote is actually a device for talking about far weightier subjects. [..]"

After the 7" "Gold in Blei", what's the next path you want to follow? What ideas do you want to explore further?

"'Gold in Blei' is a concept that makes more sense when framed within recent German culture and history. It's no coincidence it was enthusiastically released by the German label Treu um Treu. Outside that context, the two tracks that make it up can come across as a bit exotic. But so far they've proven equally enjoyable for other kinds of audiences too. At least that's what we found to be the case at the Rome show... As for future plans, what can we say? [..] We don't have a contract with any label or management, which could guarantee us more long-term planning. [..] We're probably the most underrated post-industrial act on the whole Italian scene! But we'll keep pushing straight ahead on our own path regardless. At least for as long as we have enough desire to produce something interesting, and, on the other side, for as long as there's desire and willingness from others to listen to us."

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