Argine were born in 1992, with the aim of create a polished and intimist Music influenced by Medieval/Folk tunes... All is explained in this in-depth interview...
Simona
C.V.: Argine exists since October 1992. By that time, many things have changed, only two members of the original line-up are still in the Band: Marco Consorte and me. That’s a normal thing, since Marco and me are the main authors of the Music of Argine. Several musicians have joined the Band and then have left, and others have joined and so on…At the end I can affirm that numerous musicians have experienced Argine and then they have chosen a different way. Nowadays Argine are: me (guitars and voice), Marco Consorte (guitar and voice), Alfredo Notarloberti (violin), Ferruccio Milanesi (bass and keyboards), Carmen D’Onofrio (voice) and Danilo Borghesio (percussion). Our musical project is the result of the will of expressing what is hidden deep inside of ourselves, giving free play to our most intimist and instinctive emotions and feelings, without any reserve. It’s a personal exigency: describing with words and music ourselves, an essential cathartic function to go on, staging our own pain to shake off it. Consequently, our spiritual exigency is always the same.
The new album is going to be out not before the end of this year, I guess. We have recently released a 7” with the collaboration of Federico Fiumani (Diaframma). We have re-arranged a song of the historical Band of Florence, “Marina Allasio”; one the B-side there’s a new version of “Mundana Humana Instrumentalis”, title track of our debut CD. It has been released on transparent vinyl, in a limited edition of 1500 copies, the first 100 numbered containing 2 unedited pictures: one signed by us and one of Federico Fiumani.
Concerning our future release, it will have a diverse impact than our first opus, which was about thin and ultramundane harmonies. The title should be “Luctamina in Rebus”, which means that there’s a conflict in everything. I do feel, in all the components of Nature, a strong conflict, a struggle for survival, where, sometimes, it is really necessary to fight against what you have around to emerge. And this also generates conflicts with ourselves. This will be the sense of our next album. However we are at the end of the millenium, bringing inside many theories made of terrific contradictions.
- Where does your passion for Medieval tunes come from? Is it a sort of escape from the century we belong or whatever? What do you hail of the past centuries and which is your relation with modernity?
C.V.: Middle Age has always charmed me, due to an instinctive surge, not so thought-out. The respect of that time for the physic (Nature) and metaphysic components enchants me, respect given by the fear of the Unknown. The figure of the knights errant enchants me: wandering in the world, telling their love and war adventures at the Courts. Maybe our century is too shameless, lacking of mystery and intrigue. I notice a disarming lightness in the common people: I don’t want to declare that man must live in an excessive problematical way, but I think that every human being should ask himself/herself “why?” about several things, stopping for a while and try to see what a beauty is hidden in that unknown universe called Soul, and try to live in a simpler way.
M.C.: The past represents a prodigious resource left to us free, a resource in which we have to discover beauty, purity, enchantment and wisdom. For us the past is resource, analysis and method. The past is not the scope of our Music, nor I find obvious contrast with modernity. We, musically and esthetically, are crossed by ancient music without deny all what modernity may offer to us. It’s like re-propose the past, neither as it has been conserved nor in modern key, but through thin “streaks” that link it to the modern.
F.M.: The present century has lost any enchantment due to its extreme materialism. It creates human beings without “face”, like objects without history. The eighteenth-century aristocratic culture (man is proud of its overcoming, on the contrary, man should wish its return) was based on the raising and on the uniqueness of the individual: in the behavior, in the spirit, in the inclinations, in every life’s aspect it was necessary to distinguish from the vulgarity and uniformity of the uncultured mass. Man was aware of his special destiny and this should guide man through unknown paths, paths that would have made man immortal to the descendants’ remembrances.
Nowadays, on the contrary, the primal value is represented by the levelling out: living a wretched and gray existence, not leaving traces of his existence.
- Do you consider Music as a way of expression for elevate yourselves from the mediocrity of social life?
C.V.: Music is the better way to express myself, what is deep inside of me. I don’t care about social so much, there’re the News on TV for that. I don’t think sensible people need to buy a Cd to know what is going on in the world. I think our Music (and I hope so!) make reflect every listener on what he has deep inside.
M.C.: There’s mediocre music that has raised from the social, don’t know how. There’s as mediocre music as the social it is referred to. The case of fine Music that has raised from the social remains a singular event, I guess. Music must be expressed through the mood, the honesty and the humility; so it must be “cured” and respected, on condition that it is original, on the condition that it is form and life!
F.M.: Not only Music, but Art, in each form, consents the elevation. It’s like a mystic cult that opens the gate to a few initiated. The poet is, like a prophet, further into superior spheres of knowledge. He lives the illumination, that invests him, but he bears its devastating consequences. The pain is always related with Creation, it’s the price to pay for this privileged condition.
- And concerning mediocrity and decadence, how do you feel for the decay of your beautiful Naples?
C.V.: It is difficult to live in Naples, we know, because everything is brought to a high level of exasperation. I don’t believe that to be free people must humble the freedom of the others, and that’s what unluckily often happens here. But I want to point out that recently our city has re-discovered its original charm and splendor.
By the professional and social point of view, the situation is always the same: limited, this also for what concerns Music; or it would be better say that is limited for who doesn’t play Neapolitan Music, like Argine.
- Argine may be associated to the Dark-Goth style, but I didn’t surely deduced this from your “outlook”. May I say that you don’t care about the typical Goth look so much? And what’s your opinion about the cliche’ transgression present in the Gothic culture?
C.V.: I talked about simplicity just before and I was referring myself also to this topic. I’m not criticizing who, before going out or go to a Goth concert, stays hours in front of a mirror; I just believe that it is more important expressing own sensibility and personality through Music and Art. However, we try to be pretty austere in dressing. We believe that dressing is Art, that’s true. The risk is, sometimes, to be in front of empty persons, which simply wear a mask, just to try to appear in certain way without having nothing to say or without having nothing to do with a certain kind of culture. They are empty! (I totally agree with you! Holy words man! Ed.) Anyway, at the end what a person have inside counts more than outlook! Well, if a person is rich inside and also in the outlook (style) it is appreciated.
M.C.: Dressing in dark colors or in black, as we know, doesn’t always mean that the person is a Goth. Dressing in a certain way completes a form: the theatrical and gestural expressiveness of a Band. Because the music, especially in Live apparitions, isn’t only vibration and emotions, but it’s created by physical and visible material individuals, which express it. The dress completes the roots of a Band.
F.C.: The Esthetic has a fundamental role in Life. A right visual impact is an obligated research for a musical Band and for the atmospheres a Band evokes. Concerning this topic, I have a sincere admiration for the most polished Goth scene (which has references to the Esthetic and culture of the ‘700 and ‘800) and for the most gloomy Black Metal scene (for the common background with Goth music and for the cult of the warlike medieval imaginary). Concerning the so called Apocalyptic Folk scene, and the industrial music in general, I admire the courage of those Bands (Death In June, Non, Der Blutharsch) which, following the pagan culture and magic symbologi of the Germanic Magic, have no fear to show it in public.
Obviously, Esthetic must be accompanied with technical abilities, sensibility and intelligence, or it would be only a mask to cover the mediocrity (holy words again! Ed.)
- Have got the crescent moon and the inverted rose, always present in your booklet, a particular meaning?
C.V.: They represent our logo. The crescent moon is the symbol of the Night, but it has also a Romantic value; the rose is the symbol of Beauty and Purity, it is inverted because you can look at beauty by different points of view. Looking at the booklet, I see the rose inverted, but if a person in front of me look at it, he say the rose right. This doesn’t only mean that things must be observed by different points of view; but also that the inborn Beauty (in persons and things) is, if someone or something tries to veil it, immutable.
As you can see, there’s a concept of relativity and absolutism at the same time.
- You have translated all the lyrics in English in the booklet. I suppose you have more fans in foreign countries…
C.V.: Yes, we have many fans abroad, even if we have never played out of Italy. We have many fans in Germany and we do hope to play there soon. We translated the lyrics to render them enjoyable to foreign people.
- Body is a cage, but the depart generates Pain and Fear. Do you agree with this affirmation of mine?
C.V.: Yes, I agree.
M.C.: The body, the Soul are two separatist concepts, but only of concept, not in pragmatic sense, it’s evident. “Teeth, burning blades, coarse swollen masses”: the body has got very precise canons that define its own beauty or ugliness, as finite, since dying. The Soul is impalpable: we know, partly, the canons of its beauty. The Spirit is the Expression, the unutterable “I”, it’s the quiver of poetry, the light in a nocturnal fresco; it’s form that has got timeless Life and Energy: “I’m in the disincarnate time”.
F.C.: If it is true that the Soul always yearns for the elevation, for a depart from the body, we shall not forget that also, and above all, through the body, the Soul and its sensibility reveal themselves and may act. Besides, the body, through experiences and pleasures (also of carnal nature), provides food for a tumultuous Soul.
- Concerning this last question, are “Distacco” and “Anima Mundi” about the astral travel or am I wrong?
M.C.: I don’t know if you are wrong, because, as said before, “Corpo ed Anima” represents the conflict between two elements, definable and indefinable. It’s a reflection (one of the many) on the duality of a first element (the body) which lives in a measure of Time, and of a second (the spirit) which isn’t object of Time’s corruption. You can saddle beauty or ugliness to the body. An artistic form is mysteriously such, because it has got a Soul, or it would be a form or whatever…maybe plastic according to me…Or am I wrong?
C.V.: Our Music doesn’t always give you precise and incontrovertible messages, it has also the aim to acquaint the listener with it: he can find himself in what he is listening to. So, I’m glad you have interpreted these songs in your own way. It’s a nice thing that everyone may interpret our Music in his own way, I guess.
- “Le Rose” reminds me to Blake…
F. M.: The lyric, by Marisa Iannucci, also author of the painting present on the cover of the CD, appears prophetic, visionary: a rent on a possible future, a journey on dreams’ or nightmares’ fields, as veiled or through mist in movement. I find the style and the enchantment of the “Prophetic Books” by Blake in all this.
- A part from Music, which are your main interests?
C.V.: I live my life in a really spontaneous way. Music occupies the 90% of my lifetime. I dedicate the rest to several things, I haven’t got any particular occupation or hobby.
M.C.: A part from Music, I work. In the free time, I use to read, listen to other kinds of Music, and reflect on myself and on the Band. When I have got a lot of free time I do lots of things or I simply do nothing.
F.C.: Music is only a manifestation of Art. We must pursue the Knowledge as aim, the Illumination. Early Prometheus, we must seek to a steady and laborious advancement in the Reign of the Unknown, we must strike out into the paths of the present and of the past to search for intricate plot that implies reality. Knowledge, cultivate and deepen the thirst of knowledge. An uncultivated musician, a talented executor without depth, will always be a limited and rough artist.
- Are Argine a live Band? If yes, I suppose your exhibitions to have a theatrical taste…
C.V.: You are right. Our Music evokes the theatricality. Since we don’t make so many concerts (it’s not our choice, you know, our Music isn’t for the masses), we have never thought to render our exhibitions theatrical. But I’d really like to realize it as soon as possible. When this will happen, we must engage professional actors or it wouldn’t make any sense.
F.C.: Too often, people think that render theatrical an exhibition only means improving a bit the esthetical aspect of the exhibition and having some persons that move or read poetry on the stage. Theatre, according to me, means to evoke images and sensations, transmit something more than the visual aspect. Too often, people think that theatre, above all the experimental one, has less to do with acting, as verbal as gestural. Render our shows theatrical, according to me, would need a complete marriage between notes and words, between sound and movement. A difficult project, but not impossible!
- Well, we are at the end, add anything you need…
C.V.: We hope to have been plain in the concepts you wanted to know. I invite you to get in touch to know our Music, ask information or organize a concert.
:Contacts:
www.argine.net