Computer Age

Jennifer Gentle are a duo from Padova, Italy, composed of Marco Fasolo (vocals, guitar) and Alessio Gastaldello (drums). Self after his first two albums, "I Am You Are" (Sillyboy 2001) and "Funny Creatures Lane" (Sillyboy 2002) booked by Sub Pop before publishing his third long term, "Valendas," an outrageous episode of modern psychedelia more hallucinations and twisted in the dark 60 that finally made them leave their native Italy and the anonymity that seemed doomed.
Through its website, http://www.jennifergentle.it/, we were able to contact via email with Alessio, who gladly volunteered to answer a few questions to try to explain the maze of perpetrators of domestic issues such as unexplained "I Do You Dream, "" Hessesopoa "or" Nothing Makes Sense. "
Here is the result of that conversation.

-You are the first independent group of Italian that I personally have news, how is the landscape of independent music in Italy? Are there any companies, groups, fanzines and interested people to be able to talk about a scene?

Alessio: I think Jennifer Gentle can be considered as "Outsiders" within the indie-rock scene Italian. In Italy there is an indie-rock scene as such, but many bands play music that they feel independent, occasionally trying to do something together to promote their music but in most cases the gangs "struggling" with the same scenario . These bands always try to copy something that comes from U.S. or UK ...
Before profiling by Sub Pop, despite the fact that we had great support from the press and that people seemed to like our music, never found a seal really interested in us, in fact our first albums were self. We also had problems finding places to play, despite the fact that we played at some great festival and people loved him.
For some reason that I know, we were not (we are) taken into account by the "indie-stablishment", anyway, now, thanks to Sub Pop, we can reach more people and things are becoming better.

- You can quote interesting groups in your country?

Alessio: As I said there are not too many bands that I like, I like ZU, are a trio (sax, gtr, drm) and played a mix of free-jazz, punk, noise ... in a very free but very mathematical to same time. They are in Atavistic Records (! It is not a stamp Italian!) And played a lot outside of Italy.

- "Valendas" has emerged released by Sub Pop and it appears that the company is turning this with you, how was that contact? How is your music received in the U.S.?

Alessio: We have good vibes in the U.S., before and after punch with Sub Pop, come into contact with Sub Pop after publishing "Ectoplasmic Garden Party", a reissue of our first two albums, published Lexicon Devil, a label that is autraliano well distributed in the U.S. Dean, our A / R at Sub Pop, bought the collection in a record shop in Seattle ... I liked and wrote asking us more information, we sent him some demos and things started to operate until we sign the contract offered.
We just finished our first U.S. tour has been great, people were more involved there with our music.

- How is the scene in Italy is independent of other European countries? Do you like any group French or Spanish?

Not too much about the rock in France or Spain, sorry ... I love Serge Gainsbourg!, When I was a teenager Les Negresses Vertes were very popular and I liked. At that time also were popular Mano Negra, Manu Chao is a star here, but I do not think it is too "indie". Air and Daft Punk are also very familiar. As for Spanish bands I find it difficult to say any more, sorry. Some years ago we made a wine festival and a very good band from Madrid, playing Ska but I do not remember the name.

-Whenever you are concerned with Syd Barrett and English psychedelia of 60, this influence seems fairly obvious, although there are also touches of British Folk of the 60 in your music. What group do you took to make the music?

Alessio: We like many bands, not just Syd Barrett (we are not obsessed!) And not just the 60 music, we like the artists who are able to find their own way to express their deepest feelings in a pure form and emotional ... We are not concerned whether or Trash Metal Folk touches. We like the Rock 'N' Roll of 50, the bands of Garage (Nuggetts stage, for example), Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, Can and krautrock in general, Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Miles Davis, Link Wray, Cramps, Beck (his first things), Nico, Massive Attack, Shins, Nirvana, Pixies, Breeders, Cure, Joy Division, Sex Pistols ...

In-your songs are heard sounds pretty weird, with that kind of psychedelic contáis instruments?

Alessio: When you record a song we have an idea of how it should sound and what we must convey to say we can make use of traditional instruments such as guitar, bass, drums or body, but if you are not satisfied with the result we can play anything that we find in the study: sitar, drums, Glockenspiel, iron chains, helium balloons, bottles of water ..., anything!.

-Your first two albums were recorded in your home studio, how has changed your way to record with the move to Sub Pop?

Alessio: Valendas has also been recorded in our study we have updated home with a new tape recorder, a microphone to valves, a new mixer, but analágicos effects to add to what we already had, in any form Marco bought the new material before they firmásemos with Sub Pop. Valendas I think it would have sounded like had it not been for a Sub Pop record, although it was easier since we had more money ahead of the company.

-You 've built a world that seems quite interesting not only consist of music, but also movies, comic books and a lot of elements. Sacais where did the inspiration for these letters so strange?

Alessio: It is simply the universe inside Marco, a mixture of horror movies, stories for children, sex ... possibly the film is our primary inspiration, we love Lynch, Polansky, Tobe Hopper, Dario Argento, Kubrick, Sam Raimi, Tim Burton , JX Williams ... Marco always looking for the musicality of words in his lyrics, the meaning is in second place and everything is filtered by your imagination, which is quite particular.

- Do you have thought about playing in Spain soon?

Alessio: I hope so, there are many interesting summer festivals, people from Spain Hey! Why do not you call us?

- How to listen to music now?

Alessio: recent cd's that got to me are the likes of Low, The Shins, Judi Holland ... anyway I'm still stuck in the classic roll, every day I discover new discs from the past that he did not know and they are great, recently I discovered the Zombies, cool!

- "Valendas" appears frequently on Internet forums and in programs Peer to Peer ¿think that this fact has helped popularize your disk? What you've got opinion on this?

Alessio: I think that P2P could help popularize the music, although it is a matter that has its pros and its cons ... You know, there are many possibilities that people confused finished, everything is available and there are a lot of music that will be difficult for the People know otherwise, it's free and people can learn new songs without spending money, which makes things easier .. Anyway I do not like too P2P for two reasons: The first is the sound quality, the MP3 does not sound like the CDs, they in turn do not sound like the vinyl sounded, Where are we going?
The second reason is that people are losing their critical capacities. When I started listening to music had 14 years and bought every album that was a big decision, you know, he hated spending money on bad music, so I was very careful. Now everything is free and it seems that people, after downloading a song, just listen and say: "Pretty good," everything seems to be "pretty good" but not really "excellent", "ugly" or "really bad".