1. You were very young when you recorded "The Reborn of the Rebel Angel". How do you see this album today, after 7 years since its releasing?

Opium: I love that album. I perfectly know that 'reborn' is an old-style electronic ambient work but i also think that there might be some interesting textures and atmospheres through the sounds. I feel it deep in my spirit right now. It represent the beginning of an intriguing adventure that has given me a lot of satisfaction and also permitted me to know many incredible artists around the globe that exchanged their musical experience with me. I'll always be grateful to Stefano ( Alio Die) and his Hic Sunt Leones label for releasing those tracks. I remember I created 'reborn' locked in a garage where I played with my metal group in Milan. I spent all the nights of summer 2000 with a Yamaha MD8 8 track minidisk player/recorder and a pc with a Yamaha 16bit soundcard. I used 'Magic Music Studio' and 'Goldwave' softwares for editing, mixing, and recording all the sounds. Actually 'reborn' is the OPIUM cd I listen most often, because it’ss the only one I can receive as a listener and not as a composer.








2. What was the reason of such a long break between releasing your first and second album?

Opium: I spent a lot of time trying to upgrade my working instruments and also spent a lot of time studying new softwares and technics, during that silent period ( 2001-2003). I also started to work in a commercial office as accountant ( that's my actual job ) so the time I could dedicate to music reduced a lot. I finished 'floatdownstream' in 2003 and a russian label was interested in its releasing. Then I started working on 'sympathetic flying objects', using several drones, sounds and recordings I accumulated during the past years. In 2005 I knew Silentes label, because I was interested in some cds in their catalogue, and so I introduced this label just finished 'sympathetic' and the old work 'floatdownstream' that was not released yet. Silentes was interested in both of them, ‘sympathetic’ had beautiful cd packaging and finally 'floatdownstream' reached out as cdr, obviously by permission of the Russian label.





3. Stefano Musso... a friend, a mentor? How much did he help you in the beginnings of your musical creativity?

Opium: I know him since I was a little child, he's a great musician and an incredible menthor, but first of all he's a great person. He has a extraordinary personality and mood. He's the one that showed me the power of ambient music. I was 17 when Stefano made me listen his collaboration with Ora 'the doors of possibilities' and the Raison d'Etre album 'Enthralled By the Wind of Loneliness'. While listening that waves I suddenly felt something deep inside : that music kidnapped me, and the only one thing I was going to do was running home, turning on the computer and try to create something like that sounds. As I said before, I'll always be grateful to Stefano because he permitted me to envolve my inspiration, working together in Sola Translatio project. I'm sure that if he wouldn't like to release my album and begin a collaboration with me, reaching out as ambient musician should have been very difficult, mostly because I didn't know anyone in the Italian ambient underground, which could be interested in something 'o mine. Obviously the fact that he's well known in ambient music world, helped me a lot, lots of people know me thanks to Sola Translatio project.





4. Today you have many projects (Opium, Sola Translatio, Nosesoul, Ironya). Could you in few words describe role in your life of each of them? For which part of the soul is responsible each of them?

Opium: Sola Translatio is first collaboration I was involved in. Stefano and me wanted to achieve something like canonic meditative ambient. I am sentimentally linked to Sola Translatio for the reason I explained earlier, talkin' about Stefano. Nosesoul is a strange project which has as dominant feature some noises made with Francesco Paladino breathe. The first album we made, 'angel ghost and human shades' was born in few weeks of work: Francesco sent me a cd with his lamentations and nose noises, breathes and strange ritual phrases, and I put my drones and sounds on them. The second work we releaseed, 'ethik blues/angel ghost and human shades' is a cd-dvd. For this project, Francesco rallied around internet several musicians asking them to contribute in this project. The final outcome was something incedible. I mashed voices, lamentations, strings, electronic components coming at my studio from incredible musicians : Sylvi Ally, Gayla Drake Paul, Sean Breadin and Massimo Marchini. The beautiful thing is that I personally don't know anybody of them, except for Silvy which I contacted to exchange material via ftp. Me and Francesco are planning the characteristics of the third nosesoul work, and we are going to put a third physical dimension on it: I hope it will be a cd+dvd+book. Ironya is a techno-space-ambient project, that everyone can download for free on my website or on the internet archive.org. Stefano is a good techno music programmer and composer, he's an extraordinary ability in sith programming and he always composes beautiful melodies with e-piano, so I asked him to collaborate with me creating something to mix with my ambient view. I know him from the early childhood and I'm sure we'll work on other projects together. Another incredible collaboration wich I'm involved is the one with Jason Corder, an American poliedric electronic composer which I met thanks to Databloem label. For the two albums we released I prepared two long drones and sent them via ftp. He putted magics, percussions, rythms and filter intervention on my sounds. Actually we're working on a third Corder-Opium chapter, and this time I sent not just one long drone but several drones textures, sounds ad recordings from my database, and his elaboration feedback is extraordinary. Finally Opium is my solo project. I like to think about Opium sound as a river of multiple frequencies. The basic characteristic of opium is a long drone following through all the other sounds voices and rythmic mixed in the tracks. For all of those experiences I always try not to change my soul, but just fuse my inspiration and mood with the other artists.





5. Your musical interests are very wide (from The Beatles through Meshuggah or Air to Raison d'Etre). Why have you decided to create electronic music?

Opium: Yes, I like various kinds of music. Before discovering ambient music I was only-thrash-death-metal fan. I still love heavy metal. I play the bass guitar in a rock-crossover band and I always tried to create a sort of acoustic music playing the guitar with Stefano of Ironya project but it always resulted hard to unite our ideas and moods. I always loved making music, playing an instrument or programming. Essentially, electronic music is the only part of my multiple point of view in music wich has been released on a cd. I think that my interests in playing different kind of music will never let me down, and hope that even other projects I have will be released through these next years.


6. Where such wide interests have their source? Could you tell few words about your musical childhood?

Opium: My childhood ( 5 or 6 years ) has two song as soundtrack : 'Nowhere Man' and 'Another Brick in the Wall'. I was impressed by Lennon's voice at the beginning of 'Nowhere Man' and also impressed by the sounds of that Pink Floyd song. It's strange that a little child could be attracted by that kind of songs and not by children songs, but it's true. My mother always listened to music while cleaning home or cooking, and when she put that songs on the tourntable I felt different. When I was 15 I knew hard rock and heavy metal 'till reaching extreme metal, and at that age, that kind of music could begin your life. If somebody told 'one day you'll do music with techno beat as rythmic component' i surely wouldn't believe that words... but that was the way I had to walk! Growing up I started listening other kind of sounds, opening prospective and looking for some other sounds that could catch my attention. Actually my sound library mashes several kind of music that contribuie to enrich my inspiration: from acoustic sounds to black metal, passing throgh techno or electronic music.








7. I'd like to ask you about the process of creating music in Sola Translatio. Do you work together in studio with Stefano, or do you work alone and then send processed material to the partner?

Opium: The three works we made had three different process of creation, and this may be one of the reason why they are three different cds. The only one cd we composed both staying one in front of the other and recording together the 90% of the sounds was ‘Mother Sunrise‘. I contributed In ‘Ad Infinitum’ realisation just giving Stefano a cd with some tracks: when he listened to that sounds he asked me if he could put some ideas on that. I think he created something really magic on my tracks mixing them together and adding his fantastic inspiration and sounds. Working on ‘Enigma’ we put the hands on the mixer together just one night, then it was created exchanging audio materials and working parallely on tracks 'till finally reaching the cd.
For the three collabs he made the final master.


8. When can I expect another album of this (well, one of my favourites) project?

Opium: I would like to say 'soooon !!' but it's not possible. ‘Enigma’ was born in two years, obviously not because we worked on it for that time but because we have our life, works and projects to keep going on. I hope one day we'll talk about a fourth face of Sola Translatio, and try to create something different again, but we need our time and we have to enter together the same path of inspiration.


9. OPIUM. What's the symbolism behind this moniker? Music as a drug? Maybe it follows your interests of drugs? Or maybe it's just cool sounding name?

Opium: First of all 'opium' is the name of a Moonspell song which I like very much and which I was listening really a lot of times while I was creating my first works, so I decided to give that nickname to my ambient-electronic music project. I don't like the association of my music with drugs. But I like thinking of Opium as something that can heal the highest pain. This is what I really like that my music could do. It’s unevitable that the kind of music I do may help mind trips if the listener is under drug effect, but it's more gratificant for me hearing that somebody listen to my tracks to heal mind pain, escape reality or meditate, in sane state and just listening music.








10. I've noticed that except few fragments in Sola Translatio you try to avoid dark ambient moods. Don't you like misty forests, winter landscapes or other moods like that? ;)

Opium: I like dark ambient music. Raison d'etre is one of my favourite artists. When I start to compose a song, the first sound I use as first layer is often a darkening moods track. But the Opium music peculiarity is the mixing of a minimum 10 sounds, so the dark characteristic slowly disappear. But I like the dark side of ambient even if it's very hard to create somethig canonic in dark ambient and give to your music a dominant personality.


11. In some way your music has kind of mystical dimension. How do you consider your works - should they be a background or something like a tool which helps to tear the soul off the body?

Opium: I would like that my music could be considerated for both of them. I think that if one album has both characteristics is a full album. In fact I personally listen to music in both of circumstances. I think that my songs could give to the listener a good background soundtrack while driving, sleeping or reading, and could also give something good for meditation and introspection.


12. I like the graphics on your webpage and Myspace profile. Are you also graphic designer?

Opium: No, I just like playing with graphic softwares and also like programmings. I don't have time to study graphics or internet programmings, but as I have one spare minute I like to dedicate it to improve my website or myspace page, looking for new ideas reading forums.


13. Some of your music is available for free on mp3. Why have you decided for such step? In my opinion Ironya for example is very good material, enough to release it on CD and normally sell it.

Opium: We proposed Ironya works to several labels but we always received the same answer: 'it sounds very good but the style is too old', or 'it sounds good but we release other kinds of electronic music'. So Stefano and I decided to release it for free. Today lots of people downloaded Ironya work and they're more than the number of copies that a regular ambient label should have printed. So I'm happy for Ironya. I hope that one day we'll reach a second chapter of our techno-ambient voyage. I always have been interested in free releasing of music, I think that the first aim for an artist should be trying to reach the highest number of listeners and not making money selling cds. I wish that one day the global concept of musical discography would be revisitated.





14. As I see, your favourite book author is Chuck Palahniuk. Why him? What's so attractive in his novels?

Opium: I am not a good book reader. School has been able to destroy my complete interest in novels or books. I really read few books. The Palahniuk novels are the only ones that I really manage to follow and read. I think he's a extraordinary writer because he can describe reality with an incredible true cynism that I can't take off my eyes from the pages. A famous italian writer wrote about him: 'once you read a Palahniuk story, you'll never be the same person again', in my case it's true.


15. Do you prefer books about completely new worlds, created from their foundations by the author or rather novels about our today's real world which surrounds us here and now?

Opium: I don't like fantasy stories. I like concrete and true stories. The more the story is true the more I'm interested in it.


16. What about movies? Kubrick, Fincher, Burton. Tell me few words about your movie passion.

Opium: My father made me see all Charlie Chaplin movies when I was a little child, I really loved Chaplin, so I developed a particular interest in movies since I was very young. The directors you said created something that touched my heart. Expecially 'Big Fish', 'Fight Club' and 'Full Metal Jacket'. Even if I don’t have a big culture on niche film, I spend a lot of time watching movies. I don't like tv programs except for few series, like Scrubs and Dr House. So I can say I Saw a lot of movies but not so many movies created by strange underground directors or movies pertaining to particular kind of niche cinema genres.


17. This year's Oscars ceremony was kind of duel of two movies, "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood". I love them both, but I'd like to know your opinion. Have you seen them? What's your opinion about them?

Opium: Unfortunately I have not seen both of them. But I prefer Coen bros movies than Anderson's ones.


18. Could you tell me about your musical plans for the nearest future?

Opium: Well, this year I have not work so much, but I have some ideas that soon I’ll put down on my software programs to make it concrete. In 2008 I just have worked on my last Opium work named pain(t) that will be soon releasd on Databloem label. Me and Jason Corder are finishing third collaboration and I started a collaboration with Sostrah Tinnitus. In 2009 I surely begin a new Nosesoul chapter, I think that this time me and Francesco Paladino will mix our inspiration with popular chants and instruments of north Italy.


19. And last question - which character of "The Simpsons" is your favourite and why?

Opium: Homer forever!! My (almost)wife says i'm like him! The second one is Sideshow-Bob, because I envy his haircut :))


20. That would be it. Thank you Teo for your precious time. Last words are yours.

Opium: I would like to thank you, Przemek, for putting interest in my works and projects. It's an honor to me answer to your questions. I am very happy that there are some persons like you around the globe that keep on promoting ambient, experimental and electronic music as something different and particulary interesting to be listened. Thank you and good luck.


Stark



info:

www.regnodelsuono.com
www.myspace.com/teozini








Reviews:

OPIUM "The Reborn of the Rebel Angel" (Hic Sunt Leones CD '2000)