ROMA – CRIS X Posted In: July 2013
Cristiano Luciani is an improviser, sound and visual artist; he works and lives in Rome (Italy) and Berlin (Germany). His visual and sound work has been exhibited in different contexts throughout Europe, United Kingdom, Japan, China and South America. In the 2010 he created the experimental label CX Records. Q: You are part of the band Lendormin but as a solo artist you seem to favour collaborations with Japanese artists, such as KK Null and Merzbow. What can you tell me about the Italian electroacoustic scene and do you have any collaboration with Italian musicians in the pipeline? A: I am very curious by nature, which has brought me to listen to the majority of albums by Italian artists who operate within this field. I have also played with a lot of musicians from Italy. I started a collaboration with Cristiano Deison, a musician from Udine who’s worked with Theo Teardo, amongst others, before embarking on his own solo project. He also released a split 7’’ with Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth in the past and more recently a great CD with KK Null, with whom I also collaborated. Furthermore, Deison bought one of my albums, and that is something I always appreciate, when a fellow musician buys a physical copy from you rather than ask for a freebie. I also find Pietro Riparbelli’s Cathedrals project very interesting and inspiring and I will be taking field recordings inside Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome; another work I rate highly is the one by Mario Gabola and Mimmo Napolitano, from Naples, who record under the monikers Aspec(t) and _SEC. In addition, I have been in touch with Gianluca Becuzzi. For the time being, though, there is nothing definite as yet. There are many Italian artists with whom I would like to collaborate, people like Stefano Pilia, for instance. He has an introspective approach and one can tell that what he does comes from somewhere deep inside. I have a lot of respect for many of the underground labels that put so much passion in their work in spite of our
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country’s hostile and conformist environment. I am thinking for instance of the excellent archive work carried out by the Milan based label Die Schachtel: amongst my all time favourite albums are their boxset by Gruppo di improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza and Luciano Cilio’s Dell’ Universo Assente. Q: What made you choose Maurizio Bianchi specifically for your first split solo release on your label CX Records? A: I chose Maurizio for two reasons. First of all because although I discovered him quite late, I consider his early works, such as Symphony For Genocide and Regel - among others - to be seminal albums and I was listening to them quite a lot when I first started working on my solo stuff. Also, it was my attempt to try and revive the traditional culture of apprenticeship, which I feel has become lost. I consider Maurizio to be a master and I was keen to establish a link. Nowadays, I feel that with the speed with which data is accessed on the net, many cultural references tend to get lost within this information overload with context and timeframe specs falling by the wayside. On a subconscious level, with my all of my split releases I have also gone for father figures, in a way. Maurizio Bianchi and Merzbow are both regarded as real pillars within the scene. Their work not only means a lot to me on a personal level, but is also considered a milestone within the genre. Also, I have loved KK Null’s work for a long time, and to collaborate with him on an album as well as playing live with him has been a great honour and a truly great experience. I also have to say that having big names on the label has also meant that I have been able to keep afloat especially considering