Dear readers, we are pleased to offer you in this article an interview with an Experimental musician, video-artist and electronic producer. We welcome Loris Cericola.
Hi Loris, how are you?
“Hi folks, I’m fine more or less: just struggling like everybody does! Hope you’re doing better than me tho.“
You are an Experimental, electronic and Kosmische music artist, where does your passion for these sounds come from?
“I’m can’t figure myself as an electronic/ kosmitsche musician because, from the beginning, I’m a rock-oriented guitarist and poly-instrumentalist (coming from the hardcore punk and metal music scene). While I played with my noise rock band Spirale, I found interest in electronic sounds between 2014 testing with raw cassette recordings and processed-guitar loops. Then I find my way in a dark ambient solo project called Vacuum Templi (now extinct) in which I used to play an Eko electronic organ and a 4-track tape recorder, and it was a mixture of early post-industrial sounds, drone music and occult references, close to acts like Rosemary’s Baby, Zero Kama and early Current 93.“
Your new album “Memory Hole” was released in September 2023, how would you describe this work?
“Memory Hole wasn’t a planned work so it’s still a bit difficult for me to describe it because it took sense once collected and released, but it worth a try. Because I’ve the bad behaviour to use my music to figure out and exorcise phases of my life, this album means for me a transition checkpoint: I used to listen a lot of James Ferraro, Oneothrix Point Never and Klaus Schulze during the quarantine days and I developed more interests in more melodic, meditative and musical ambient/ electronic references, despite my old dark ambient and industrial works with Vacuum Templi. The choice to release the album on 09/11, for a couple of strange connections, isn’t really coincidental: I live “debuted” with my personal name in 09/11/2021 and I prepared an ambient/ drone version of “We Will Fall” from The Stooges, in which I used a lot of samples from emergency phone callings from the people inside the Twin Towers, a bit before the collapse.“
The album stems from sessions and recordings in the early post-pandemic period, how did the record come about?
“I just wanted to change my way to play and to compose music because I wanted to detach from that dark and gloomy sounds that I used to propose; so back in 2021 I had a studio with my collective Cerchio23 in which we used to work and organize private events with live performances and video-installations and, during a couple of summer nights alone in the studio, I tried to composed and recorded these tracks, let myself follow my instinct and recording it without any record plans or settings. In these two years I tried several time to re-record these tracks for good but I never was satisfied of them, so when I decided to give “Memory Hole” a life, I took and a bit reworked the original recordings, and I’m glad of it.“
This is your second album, how has your sound evolved from the previous one?
“Memory Hole it’s, maybe, totally different than “Metaphysical Graffiti”, the album released by Artetetra Records in 2022, that was entirelly composed with a multitrack tape recorders “orchestra” and a reel-to-reel magnetophone, using a lot of samples, lost recordings and random tapes collected through these years of “retromania”. Both’s following a unique idea of persistence of time, memory and matter, with their conceptual and practical relations. Surely “Metaphysical Graffiti” is closer to a kind of tape music with its haunting and untouchable atmospheres, obscure Sci-Fi sounds and phantom-summoning frequencies:
I’m pretty proud of how these two works can communicate with each other, either if they’re completely different.“
You like to experiment with retro keyboard sounds, what are your sources of inspiration?
“I’m a flea market enthusiast since I can remember and I used to grab every kind of keyboards, from scholastic keys to electronic organs. During the decades of 60s and 70s, in the middle of Marche Region (the place where I live), some industrial companies like Eko, Crumar, Elgam (and much more) used to manufacture musical instruments for the consumer production like strangely unique synthesizers, keyboards and organs and, of course, I collected several kinds of these instruments. This important phase of our history is protected by the Marche region synthesizer museum (or the so called “Museo del synth marchigiano”), in which where you can find the most rare synthesizers produced here in middle Italy.“
Yours is a solo project, will there be a chance to hear your music live?
“I always played in live session since I was 15 years old, so I can’t figure it out releasing music without performing it live, so of course, just follow my next move and let’s see what happen!“
Besides music, you are also a video-artist, what projects do you have in the pipeline?
“I just went out from “Scollinare Film Festival” in Pollenza (Macerata), they asked me to make a video-installations for multiple CRT monitor with historical footage of the country and its citizen, and a live VJ set for the Italian rock band Bud Spencer Blues Explosion. I’m now working on a audio/video VHS mixtape for my other solo project Placenta, and a couple of ideas running in my mind for months but I want find the right moment to put it out.“
Music is constantly evolving, how do you see today’s scene and the future of your genre?
“It’s a too difficult topic for me to approach it, I just make the music I like and let it out as it is.“
The title-track visualiser is out now, do you have any other videos or singles planned from the album?
“I’m not started it yet but I just want to make a video from “Wicked Dreams” or “Technical Ecstasy”.“
Do you have any other passions or artistic projects outside of music and videos?
“I just want to find a lapse of time to come back to my cut-up collages, oil paintings and calcographic printings, which they are my other passions and interests, but I haven’t enough space in my studio to think about it, so I continue my way to play music and make videos – also I don’t know if I have other passions that doesn’t involve “artistic” things: surely I love drinking beer, getting high, staying with my affections, imagining fake scenarios and hurting my own feelings.“
What advice would you give to young artists approaching music in a more sophisticated genre such as yours?
“Don’t worry about the meanings and constructs, just let the music take over on you, and let yourself take over on music.“
How difficult is it, if at all, to establish yourself in the modern music market by proposing experimental sounds like yours?
“I’m costantly trying hard not to think about it to avoid any kind of frustration. In a over-saturated music network it’s an everyday struggle for every musician and artist dealing with the today’s dynamics, from the live music to the online stream. I’m just trying to communicate things, to be constant, sincere, trying not to worry about – this is just what I feel to do everyday in contrast with other shitty and underpaid jobs that I use to do, either if the music it’s not a full-time job for me yet.“
I thank Loris for the interview, wishing him all the best for the continuation of his artistic career.
“First of all thanks a lot to Jacopo and all PRJ staff for allowing me to spent some words about “Memory Hole” and my works in general, thanks a lot for real! Also wanted to thanks all the people who supported me in these two years of activity, thanks a lot to Artetetra Records, to Cerchio23 Collective (Alessandro, Gianmaria, Mirco), Frankie and DD from Little Pieces Of Marmelade, Nello from Loop Live Club, Alexandre
Manuel aka “And The Bear” and those who are still supporting (and still standing!) me and my work: thanks again.” – Loris
