Fanzines, what a passion

Mimeograph, photocopies, digital pages, the scent of ink and passion. Those beloved old fanzines, little magazines put together by die-hard fans of an artist, a movement, whatever you like, as long as those pages were bursting with the desire to discover, celebrate, criticize and dissect the subject the fan (maga)zines were devoted to. Personally, I loved so many from the prog scene of the 80s and very early 90s (Paperlate, Arlequins, Melodie & Dissonanze — which was a proper full-fledged magazine — Dusk, still around today). So many gems I discovered thanks to these underground publications. I learned things through fanzines that I wouldn't have found anywhere else, I bought tons of vinyl, waited impatiently outside record shops that stocked them, and immersed myself in them for hours: they were my favorite source of music news.

Every time I stumble across one of these objects, I'm gripped by a wave of nostalgia. And it's not that I'm the type who likes to look back often, but there are things that inevitably take me back to a time when art really meant passion. Times when getting hold of a record, a magazine, or catching a certain film was an undertaking that cost money and effort. But the payoff rewarded you: it was something that genuinely helped you grow, sharpened your critical sense, fed your hunger to know more. Once you'd exhausted the news in the "official" magazines, you moved on to the ones in fanzines, and there you found everything you couldn't find anywhere else: in-depth pieces, translated lyrics, hard-to-find albums, photos that were often grainy and objectively ugly, reproduced just as they were on those ink-stained pages, yet possessed of an irresistible charm.

Then the internet came along and swept it all away, putting everything within reach. Over time we came to terms with it — the Web has a thousand upsides too, after all, and passion has to come from within: even with everything available, you always find a way to seek out and get excited about new discoveries. So, enough with the nostalgia — full speed ahead into the future.

But one day I spot a cover on Instagram: a photo of a young woman with her hair tousled by the wind, in a faded blue, framed by a softer shade, as if she were wrapped in fog. There's some text — the biggest words read "Sirene" (at the bottom) and "(Pigiama)", in brackets, at the top. My heart skips a beat: it looks, in every way, like a fanzine, one of those old, enchanting ones. I know nothing about it, I have no way of leafing through it, but it's as if it's telling me something, I can hear music without actually hearing it: the music of Slowdive, of Cocteau Twins, of This Mortal Coil, of Beach House… of so many shoegaze-wave-dreampop bands I love to death. Music made of angelic voices drowning in reverb, hallucinations, sun, sea-spray, the scent of rain, melancholy.

I have to know more. I find a website and discover it really is a fanzine, with a delightfully dream-like graphic style that carries over into the other issue (there are two, so far), with a new dreamlike face on the cover (at first she reminds me of Rachel Goswell, but it isn't her) — here it reads "Fiorista".

So what on earth is this fanzine about? Clearly, it's not devoted to a band, a musician, a genre, or anything else in particular. But a mood shines through, the reverberating one I described above. I get in touch with the editorial team, with Federica Scandolo, editor-in-chief and jack-of-all-trades. Very young (27) and decidedly alien (for her age) to the historic world of DIY publishing. She tells me about this adventure, about the blog she runs and then the leap into print. She sends me the two issues. They arrive, I flip through them, and once again I feel that reverberating dream, those indistinct voices, that narcolepsy. It talks about music, name-checking artists I don't know or have only ever heard mentioned, and I'm gripped by an irresistible curiosity. I've always loved being amazed by people who know more than me, and Federica knows a great deal — about underground artists, travel, fashion, essential herbs, witchcraft, biology… I fall in love with pages that resonate with my own way of seeing the world: suspended, out of focus, balanced between dream and waking. I adore magical realism, and here there's both the real and the magic.

So what is "Pigiama" actually about? I don't know, and I don't want to know — and that's how it should be. Maybe it's about not talking about what it's about. I'd rather it stayed indistinct, hazy. That hasn't stopped me from asking Federica a few questions, though, mostly to give some pointers to anyone who stumbles across this article and to help spread the word about her seductive creation. Read, then forget — but buy it first: https://pigiamazine.com/

If you had to explain to someone who doesn't know it what "Pigiama" is (or isn't), what would you say?

Pigiama Magazine is an independent online and print magazine based in Italy, but with an international outlook on art, music and lifestyle. The blog is a collection of interviews with emerging artists from the underground scene, presented as bedtime stories. Each print issue revolves around a specific theme, usually tied to the dreamlike and the magical. I like to call it a magazine with a lunatic release schedule, precisely because it lacks a fixed publication frequency or a set editorial plan. The aim is to spread today's underground culture and build a community of dreamers.

What struck me about "Pigiama" is its evanescent nature — the fact that it's not devoted to a single artist (as is often the case) but to a kind of atmosphere that I'd place, musically, somewhere in dreampop-shoegaze territory. Would you agree?

I'd say that reading is spot on: there isn't one single, precise focus, but rather a nocturnal, magical, dreamlike atmosphere that envelops the content. The musical comparison to genres like dream-pop and shoegaze is more than fitting in that sense; I'd only add a pinch of goth, darkwave and psych to the cauldron to make the potion complete. It's definitely a fanzine with a post-punk sensibility, both in its DIY ethics and its experimental spirit.

The tone of voice belongs to a generation in pyjamas, where "staying in your pyjamas" is synonymous with introspection and self-discovery, but also a state in which a certain existential dread can take over at any moment — a bit like what happens to Robert Smith in the video for "Lullaby", to give you an idea.

There's no shortage of music (Be Forest, Giungla…) — what guides your choices?

My choices are based mostly on personal taste; when I hear something I like, I try to write about it in the magazine. It's a very spontaneous process. I prefer to work directly with the artists, but I also consider pitches from press agencies, especially foreign ones. The underground world is teeming with talented artists who deserve to be explored in depth, so there's never a shortage of musical collaborations.

Given how young you are, it seems only natural to ask how you came to devote yourself to a medium so far removed from your generation.

I've always loved magazines in general, and that naturally drew me to this medium. I started out writing for the blog, but I knew that sooner or later I'd want to print something physical, and so it happened. I discovered relatively late that my editorial concept could be called a fanzine, and I have to say the term captures perfectly the independent approach behind Pigiama Magazine.

The fanzine covers a variety of subjects beyond music, in a series of your pieces on travel, fashion, essential herbs, witchcraft, even biology. What's the concept that ties all these disciplines together?

I have a fairly journalistic relationship with content, so I tend to take multiple points of view into account; that's why within the print magazine you can find everything from witchcraft to science. The columns help conceptually manage the specific theme of each issue, so as to include several topics and disciplines while keeping the reading experience flowing.

Shall we talk about the artwork? It's a distinctive trait of the fanzine, as spare as it is captivating.

Designing a magazine graphically takes time and a lot of preliminary research, it's not an immediate process; I gave myself the time to study the aesthetics of many vintage fanzines and magazines, but also of current independent publications and aesthetic trends. Then you have to give yourself time to experiment, which is the most creative and relaxing part.

The artwork is very important to me, it's the element I devote the most time to overall, precisely because I want the magazine to communicate its essence even before you read the texts. And maybe this is exactly where the musical comparison we mentioned earlier takes on its most evocative shades: dreamy words get lost in the grainy texture of risograph printing, like distant voices submerged in a haze of reverb.

What do you expect from "Pigiama" and what awaits us in the future?

For the near future I have in mind a much more inclusive print edition, which means we'll have to sacrifice a bit of the current graphic layout. I'm working on new merch designs, like patches, t-shirts and pins. As for the fate of the magazine, though, I can't say. The future is more uncertain than ever...

Ride the wave of great music

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