Satantango: “Hope is the province”
Satantango’s debut album can be translated into images. The fields, the mud, the dirt road that crosses them, the fog, the half-empty hall of a provincial cinema on a Sunday afternoon. A power plant no longer in use, an image that once again represents a very specific metaphor, the same one that Vasco Brondi described more than a decade ago (“Costellazioni”, his third album, is from 2011). A place poised between decay and beauty, between immobility and energy, a lifeline in a changing world. «A suspended place, which we are fond of. A place that seemed stuck in the post-war period. It is located at the end of our walk. Today they restored it, we almost feel sorry.”
Desolation, disillusionment, slowness. Sensations and atmospheres that the duo from Cremona have translated into their first album, released on November 21st, for Dischi Sotterranei and Sony Music Publishing. A tracklist made up of eight tracks that leave no doubt about the artistic intent of Valentina Ottoboni and Gianmarco Soldi: to create a record with typical shoegaze and dream pop sounds, with forays into prog. Dense, ethereal and enveloping sounds, which drag you into a dreamy, at times psychedelic atmosphere. «Tons of electric guitars, disintegrated, reverbs, bass, drums, lots of ambient sounds, noises», they say.
A record with a homemade production, made with an old Mac and a makeshift sound card, lyrics written while walking through the fields of Cremona but also observing the world, “as if from a distant screen”. “With serene resignation we have taken note of what is around us, we don’t feel sorry for ourselves, we don’t offer solutions, we note what is there.” Valentina and Gianmarco speak intertwining their voices, we meet them at the tables of a bar in Milan which, not even on purpose, has the heaters off, as if to remind us that we are talking about a record that reminds us of how biting the provincial cold can be.
Satantango, a name that has nothing holy about it, be careful not to add an n, was chosen in homage to the 1994 Hungarian film of the same name by Béla Tarr (it lasts more than 7 hours) and based on the book by Nobel Prize winner for Literature László Krasznahorkai, also the film’s screenwriter. «A film that tells the story of the decline of a village lost in a grey, lonely, desolate and muddy land like ours. It remembers our places and in some ways also our people.” As can also be understood from the titles of their songs: “9.11”, “Youth, love and anger”, “Outro”, “Permafrost”, “Strada Provinciale 6”, “Villa Alluvioni”, “Sigla”, “Cinema Tognazzi”.
A record that was born in the province and could only be the opposite in terms of images, sounds and themes.
«We are an hour and a half away from Milan, but we realize that when we return home we are in a completely different world. Living in the province means looking at things from afar, calibrating them in a different way than those who find themselves at the center of the chaos. This, inevitably, reflects on our way of writing and making music. On the album we talk about what we know, what we have experienced and are experiencing. Places are often metaphors for what our generation feels. It’s a record written by outsiders, far from everything, as if we were watching things on a screen.».
How was it working on this self-produced album?
«We were looking for a dirty and muddy sound. Having very basic equipment, an old computer and makeshift equipment helped us in this. This put us in a position to play low-fi as we wanted, but also to avoid the temptation of trying to sound glossy, ultra clean and ultra produced. It wouldn’t have been consistent with what we wanted to do. We come from a muddy and dusty place, playing with an American production would have been completely out of context. What we tell and the audiences we come from are much darker, ethereal but also tangible. We recorded everything at home and everything with a tightrope balance.”
How did the album’s lyrics come about?
«We first wrote “9.11”, a date that symbolizes the beginning of the fall, and “Cinema Tognazzi”, the one that closes the album. We fixed them as if they were cardinal points, the others were born in the middle. We recorded them one at a time, overall we worked on the album for a year, in the meantime we also had to learn how to produce it. It’s a record that rests on a very unstable balance, if you move something everything collapses and this is also why we left many pieces as similar as possible to the original auditions. When we tried to ‘fix’ things we realized they weren’t working and we just kept it that way.”
The province is desolation and immobility but it is often precisely these elements that ignite a creative spark as a lifeline. Was it like this for you?
«Yes, absolutely. Many groups and artists who come from the province bring something new. There is more hunger and it is easier not to conform to others, to find one’s own identity away from the chaos that the big city inevitably brings with it. You are somewhat isolated and this helps you get by in some way. Living on the margins creates an imaginary and a spark under that layer of ash that seems to cover everything. The desire to say something is more likely to come from the province, great songwriters like Guccini have also taught us this, for example, with “Piccole città” but there are many examples.”
This is your debut album, how did this duo come about?
«We have known each other since we were children, we all know each other in a small town like ours, we have both always loved music and playing. We have other experiences in music behind us with other backgrounds and similar musical and cinematographic tastes, from there this project was born. We understood that we could do something of our own with a very specific direction.”
How do you leave Cremona and get to the stages?
«We were lucky. We wrote to Roberto Trinci of Sony Music on Facebook, we didn’t have direct contact, we tried. We have always followed his work, he was the editor of everything we like released in Italy, Baustelle, Zen Circus, Subsonica, Le luci della Centrale Elettrica, Cosmo, Andra Laszlo De Simone. He responded to us and also helped us direct the project. Then we started writing to labels, Dischi Sotterranei liked it and things fell into line from there.”
What do you expect now?
«We’re not sure we have real expectations, we’re so at the beginning of everything. We would like to know that our record is understood in the right context. We would like people to be able to see themselves in what we say, to find a connection with our words and with the music. If we look to the future, we are aware that every project evolves, but we hope that every new creation arises from the authentic need to say something true, without ever losing sight of the need to communicate what is most authentic we can give in that moment.”
In your opinion, is there room for your musical genre in Italy?
«I think there is definitely room for our genre in Italy. There is a musical underworld that wants to make itself heard, to have its space and to reach a wider audience, less tied to the mainstream circuits. Also speaking as listeners, we feel the need to discover new musical reference points. There is an audience, and they are curious to listen to different things. Let’s take Vasco Brondi for example: 15 years ago he found his audience and shows that there is an interest in a type of music. Music that sits between underground and pop has its own strength, and there’s a niche that needs it.”
The themes of the album are a photograph of your generation, between illusion and disillusionment, between generational misunderstanding and desolation.
«We are a generation that grew up in the nineties, we lived the myth of progress and personal fulfillment, only to find ourselves faced with a society that offers no certainties. Let’s think about September 11th (the first song on the album is 9.11), which marked a vulnerability for everyone, not only from a political point of view, but also economically and socially. We grew up with the idea that everything was possible, but we found ourselves deluded, with the feeling that, in the end, there is nothing.»
In the album there is a continuous reference to cinema, in the titles (“Gioventù, amore, anger” or “Cinema Tognazzi”) and in the songs, where you can hear the noise of an old projection machine, for example. Why this connection?
«It was natural for us to create a cinematic atmosphere in the songs, with a dreamlike touch. We have always had this connection with cinema, and therefore it came natural to integrate it into the lyrics and music. Each song was thought of as a sort of soundscape, a musical image that develops. Music, for us, always refers to images, and this connection was the basis of the creation of our musical imagery.”
Is there hope for the province?
«Hope is the province».
