Photography Gianmarco Del Re
Milan – O’ + Die Schachtel Posted On: October 2, 2011
Garibaldi-Isola, a rapidly mutating district in the heart of Milan, is home to Die Schachtel, a record label/publishing house specialising in electronic/concrete/avant-garde music, sound poetry and artist’s records, established in 2003 by Fabio Carboni and Bruno Stucchi. Since 2007 it has been collaborating with O’, an interdisciplinary art space founded by Sara Serighelli and Angelo Colombo in 2001 to promote residency programs, art exhibitions, lectures, performances and concerts. Projects are mainly site specific and originated by connections, visits, living and lasting relations… Q: What is the current state of electroacoustic music in Italy? Fabio Carboni: In the last couple of years, the electro-acoustic scene has become increasingly vibrant, thanks to a new generation of musicians who have taken up and developed electronic music in a totally spontaneous and original way. This has not meant a fracture with the past, but neither has it signaled a nostalgic walk down the experimental music lane. What has happened has been an intensification of the activity and the interest in all things electro-acoustic, and this has been true not only in Milan. Nowadays, musicians are not just looking for venues to play, but are happy to try different approaches and try on new hats. Many of them, for instance also act as producers and not just on their own albums. Some even open project spaces and invite their peers to play, thus creating a network of musicians who don’t
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always all know each other, but frequently end up collaborating. Sara Serighelli: It has to be said as well, that with far fewer venues and dedicated spaces for live performances, the scene has became more dynamic out of necessity. Festivals, events, and gigs have become nomadic with musicians always trying to find new and alternative ways of presenting their work. FC: As far as the experimental music scene goes, traditional music venues have become obsolete in Italy, whereas they still seem to function in the UK. To program a series of electro-acoustic gigs is not seen as financially viable in Italy, therefore new initiatives have sprung up with people playing sets in private flats and apartments that are seldom if ever advertised and function by word of mouth. What normally happens is that one gets onto a mailing list and is then notified of the date, time, and location of forthcoming events. There is currently no website connecting all such initiatives, but this is something we are working on. Another reason why Milan is a hub of activity is that the city has always been a centre of production, with recording studios and printing facilities etc, which makes it easier to release albums here. This explains the recent proliferation of new record labels such as Senufo, Hundebiss, Presto!?, Urashima, etc. Having said that, the experimental music scene is highly developed with new things
happening in the Veneto region as well, and specifically in Vittorio Veneto, home of the music label Von, and to a lesser degree in Venice and Padova. There’s also been a kind of renaissance in cities like Florence, Modena, Rome, Naples and Palermo. Q: What are the main challenges in running a small label like Die Schachtel? FC: Even though we have been operating for eight years now with a good line of distribution we operate at a loss. We started off by releasing obscure archival material from the 50s up to the 80s by neglected composers who have only been too happy to see their work finally been distributed. We wanted to re-activate the sounds of pioneers of computer music, such as Pietro Grossi, founder of the Studio of Phonology of Florence, and to give voice to seminal, yet little known female artists such as Teresa Rampazzi and Franca Sacchi. However, alongside historical analogical electronic music recordings, we have also been promoting new works mainly by young Italian musicians, with the odd exception, such as Stephan Mathieu, which is by no means an easy task. What we lack in Italy is the ability to create a co-