ASTRONAUTA PINGUIM
Fabricio Carvalho, AKA Astronauta Pinguim, is a well-known Brazilian electronic musician and he uses several media to spread the knowledge on the electro-acoustic and the electronic music history. By following him on Facebook, his virtual friends can be delighted in reading his "anniversary's posts": each day Carvalho publishes links on the occasion of composers' birthdays - or other recurrences - allowing people to know the works of important XXth Century's electronic artists. Furthermore, he writes and collects interviews with the Masters of electronic music in his blog (astronautapinguim.blogspot.it) and leads a radio show on electronics (Oscillations Radio Show) on air in Brazil, Germany and Portugal.
Electronicgirls is very proud to have the opportunity to share with you a musical selection especially created by Astronauta Pinguim for Past and Presence - the event will take place in Venice, at S.a.L.E. Docks on 9th and 30th April. The constant development of technology allows us to get and spread more and more information; nowadays, everyone might start a particular research and then may publish the results through e-books, blogs, You Tube channels, web portals etc. Even if sometimes those outcomes are not so perfect, we can say that everyone is a "potential expert" on something. Someone could see damage in this phenomenon, others instead could take advantages and benefits by using their own criticism to recognize and separate good works from the bad ones. In this void of knowledge and information, even the identity of the musicologist has been radically changed. Here a few questions to Astronauta Pinguim. - Can we define you as free-lance musicologist? I never thought of that, but if I'd had to define my involvement with music research, I'm a independent researcher on early electronic and avant-garde music. It's a labor of love, and maybe the word musicologist would imply in having a more academic approach to my research. So, officially I'm a musician and producer, who earns his life working as a musician and producer, and who loves and uses his free time to research on early electronic. - When did you start getting interested in electronic music and how come your involvement in the electronic music history? I became interested in electronic music and instruments when I was a kid, but without knowing exactly what I was interested in. I always loved the rock music from the 60s and 70s, since I was very young, and all those artists and bands used synthesizers, and also a considerable number of them had some avant-garde elements or links with other avant garde artists. So, it was natural for me to go on further and further into this kind of a more "unconventional" music: you know, David Bowie leads to Brian Eno, that leads to John Cage, that leads to a whole scene of avant-garde musicians and composer; ELP leads to the Moog Synthesizer, that leads to the Theremin; Kraftwerk leads to Karlheinz Stockhausen, that leads to Pierre Schaeffer, that leads to the Futurists. Those were the links that first led me to dig really deep into the history of electronic music. And, as I always mention, time. I manage myself to have time to keep on searching and researching on the subjects I love, and electronic music history is a passion for me, so I use a fairly amount of time to dig that a little bit more everyday. - As a musician, how much the knowledge on electronic music history has been influencing your works? Well, first I wouldn't be a musician if I didn't get in touch with electronic music instruments early on in my life. I already played other instruments when I got to know the synthesizers, especially the Moog. I was very young then, never even played in a real band, and there wasn't anyone else nearby to teach me the principles of synthesis and electronic music (and no internet yet,) so I had to discover everything by trial and error. It was my school, right or wrong, it was how I leant how things worked (at least for me). Later on, I started to receive invitations to be part of bands and to record and play live with other musicians, mainly because of my involvement with electronic (and probably, in most of the situations, because I was the only one nearby who had a Moog synthesizer, and know how to get a weird sound from it). So, if I wasn't involved with electronic music and electronic musical instruments, probably I wouldn't be able to go on and have a career in music, probably music would be my weekend hobby, or something like that. I owe everything to Robert Moog & Herb Deutsch, and other visionary guys that made it all possible! - What or who were your early passions and influences? In music and also in helping me to define a way to live and to see the world, David Bowie was one of the earliest, if not the first one. The Doors, too. Also, Kraftwerk, ELP, Yes, King Crimson. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, naturally, but also The Zombies, Procol Harum, and other bands from the 60s. At the same time, non-musical influences: Jack Kerouak, Hieronymus Bosch and Salvador Dali, Stanley Kubrick, Sergio Leone, German Expressionism movies... - You divide yourself between your Facebook page activity, your blog, the radio show and your role as an electronic musician. How much time do you spend in creating your educational projects and how do you find the time to do everything? I'm always doing something, always managing with my time. For the radio show, I record the programs in advance, so I only have to go deep into that every two or three months. On the blog part, I'm a little lazy these days, but I want to go back to work on that front, as soon as possible. It's one of the things among my "duties" that I like the most, to get in direct contact with people I admire. For my work as a producer and musician, is mostly on demand, so there are periods in which I have more time to do the other tasks, and of course there are periods in which I cannot even have time to breath. But, I'm glad and grateful that I work only with subjects that I love, so it's not that hard to find time for that. - Concerning your blog, what are your criteria for selecting people to be interviewed? In part it depends more on external factors than on my criteria. There are times in which I'm able to contact well known people, like Vince Clarke, Rick Wakeman, and Karl Bartos. Of course I like when it happens, but since those guys are very well known and were interviewed a lot of times, I have to be more careful in what to ask, otherwise it will be just another interview with them, among thousands that anyone can find on the internet. Sometimes I wonder how nice it would be to interview, for instance, Halim El-Dabh, and search for a way to do that. When I decided to contact him, I didn't know even how and where to start. It was amazing when his wife Deborah replied my email, and we started a conversation about the interview, that led to the interview itself (a very long one), and to a close friendship between Halim, Deborah and me. I had the opportunity meet them in the USA in two occasions after the interview, a very nice friendship was born because of that interview. Other times, like for instance when I interviewed the American composer John Dinwiddie - who died last year -, I wanted to have someone "unknown" beyond the avant garde music scene domains, to have another view on how things happened specifically in the US West Coast in the early 60s. And Dinwiddie replied my questions with material enough to a book. I wish he'd be still here, so he could go on and finish a book, in fact... So, as I told you, it varies. Sometimes I interview someone important to the whole history of electronic and avant garde, sometimes I interview very well known names into the subject, and sometimes I interview composers and musicians that are important for me to dig a specific scene, period of time, or region in the world. - Why do you feel the urgency of doing this? Why do you think it's important to attract a "popular" interest on the history of electronics? Well, yes, I kinda feel the urgency for the interviews, but mainly because I'm getting old, of course, and so are the guys that I want to interview. And those guys made it possible for us to work and appreciate electronic music nowadays. My main focus is to attract attention to them, to show that electronic music wasn't born last week, last month, last year, that there's a whole world to be explored, created by those guys in the last century, and even before, by the guys who sowed the seed for them. It's utopian to think that a blog and a radio show like the ones I run, an event and a book like yours will attract thousands of people, but if we can just make a handful of people aware of those pioneers and all the efforts that they made to help the world be what it is today, it's already worthy. They, those pioneers deserve that. And the audience deserve to have access to their efforts and work. - Sometimes I have the perception that the knowledge on electronic music history is hardly recognized as "popular matter"; electronic sounds are everywhere in our daily lives but its history is somehow considered as "sectarian", almost the times enclosed between the walls of conservatories, private foundations or universities... What do you think about it? I think things are changing a little bit. And internet changed some things (well, some for worse, but in this case specifically for better). When I started to research on early electronic, there were just a few people that had access to the recordings, and even to some of the biographies of composers and engineers not exactly known beyond the walls of academia (and you have to keep in mind that I'm writing from Brazil, and here electronic music was very rare in the early days, only a few composers adventured themselves on that field). Well, some of the people that had this knowledge and access used to act almost like the church acted in relation with the manuscripts in the Middle Age: the knowledge was theirs and it wouldn't be spread. Internet had changed that. Now, almost anything you know about the existence, you can find somewhere, or at least find some people interested in sharing the knowledge. - Can you tell us something about the play-list we are going to listen in Venice, at Past and Presence? I choose the works that, I think, can represent a step-by-step on the early days of electronic music. From Halim El-Dabh's piece from 1944, going into Pierre Schaeffer's musique concrète, to Stockhausen's involvement with musique concrète and then to the elektronische musik, to the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in the USA, to the independent studios and composers, like Louis and Bebe Barron and Tod Dockstader, to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and finishing with Robert Moog and Herb Deutsch and the Moog Synthesizer, and the first piece written for the instrument. Of course a lot of composers, inventors, and artists had to be left out of the playlists, because of the time, for sure, but I think the playlists can help to the audience to create a logical timeline, and the ones interested can go on and do their own research about the subject. And, of course, whoever want to contact me to ask for indication on other composers, please fell free to write an email, or contact me via Facebook. And, thank you so much for the opportunity! Thank you Fabricio! We look forward to hearing your play-list at Past and Presence, Venice, S.a.L.E. Docks, 9th and 30th April. Save the dates! |
Astronauta Pinguim crated a special playlist for Past & Presence:
Two evenings dedicated to electronic music and dance history Saturday 9th and 30th April S.a.L.E. Docks, Venice From 8 p.m. Electronicgirls in collaboration with Live Arts Cultures and S.a.L.E. Docks invites you to the discovery of the contemporary world of dance and electronic music on Saturday 9th and 30th April. A cocktail party will trace the evolution of electroacoustic and electronic avant-garde through a playlist by Astronauta Pinguim. Visions of dance and body movement will be introduced and curated by Margherita Pirotto. Closure dj-set by electronicgirls. Two intense evenings not to be missed, dedicated to the re-discovery of the XX Century's innovators in dance and experimental music. EVENTS SCHEDULE: SATURDAY 9 APRIL 8.00 p.m. > Opening 8.15 > First listening Session by Astronauta Pinguim (20') 9.15 > Marianna Andrigo The Virgin Sacrifice (from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring; original choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky. Costumes by Ilaria Pasqualetto) 9.45 > conversation on dance with Margherita Pirotto 10.15 > Second listening Session by Astronauta Pinguim 10.35 > Dj set by LECRI / electronicgirls SATURDAY 30 APRIL 8.00 p.m. > Opening 8.15 > First listening Session by Astronauta Pinguim (20') 9.15 > Marianna Andrigo The Virgin Sacrifice (from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring; original choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky. Costumes by Ilaria Pasqualetto) 9.45 > conversation on dance with Margherita Pirotto 10.15 > Second listening Session by Astronauta Pinguim 10.35 > Live set by Bertrand Rossa / electronicgirls 11 > Dj set by LECRI / electronicgirls Video projections with materials from ViSi's Dance Archive. Bookshop: Auditorium Edizioni Entrance Fee: 3 € |