Altrock Productions |
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toroddfuglesteg
Forum Senior Member Retired Joined: March 04 2008 Location: Retirement Home Status: Offline Points: 3658 |
Topic: Altrock Productions Posted: February 02 2011 at 09:14 |
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Altrock Productions is a record label who has released some really great albums both last year and during the previous years. Yugen, Aranis, Ciccada, Rational Diet and PikaPika Teart..... just to mention a few of the truly great albums they have released. It goes without saying that I am not the only one in ProgArchives who rates Altrock Productions very highly. I got in touch with the label for their story. Both Marcello Marinone and Francesco Zago answered my questions. ==================================================
Let's
start with the beginning. Yugen and Altrock Productions share the
same persons involved and that leads me to believe that your ethos
and philosophies is mainly the same. But please tell us more about
why you started Altrock Productions, your philosophies and your label
profile.
Marcello
Marinone: Originally Altrock was just a musical festival. I organized
three editions in Milan (2005, 2007, 2008), with important italian
and european guests, such as Isildurs Bane, The Watch, Picchio dal
Pozzo, Yugen, Deus Ex Machina. Altrock label was born in 2006 to
release the first cd of Yugen, Labirinto
d’acqua.
Me and Francesco Zago founded together the Yugen project, and we
found natural to call the label as the festival, in a sort of
continuity in terms of musical style and philosophy. Both the
festival and the label are mainly devoted to avant-rock and RIO. Last
year we decided to open a new division called Fading to make space to
“simpler” and more melodic musical proposals, close to
progressive and Canterbury styles. The main features of our projects,
however, are the originality and above all the quality of the
proposals (production, graphics, and so on). Altrock
Productions is both a festival and a record label. Please tell us
more about the festival and gigs side of Altrock Productions.
Marcello
Marinone: The first edition was organized in 2005, and we had
Isildurs Bane, The Watch, Gecko’s Tear and Arti e Mestieri. In 2007
we concentrated on Italian music, with Yugen and Deus Ex Machina.
2008 edition was a great occasion, with six gigs in two nights: the
main event was the return of Picchio dal Pozzo (with Yugen), then we
had French TV, Spaltklang, Chance:Risiko, Hostsonaten, DFA, Rational
Diet, Accordo dei Contrari. As the label was growing, we gave our
groups the opportunity to play live in Italy in a beautiful context.
From that edition we recorded the Picchio dal Pozzo gig, that we
released some months ago. Unofortunately we momentarily stopped the
festival due to organizational problems. Is
Altrock Productions your daytime job or do you have a sane job in
addition to the label ?
Francesco
Zago: Unfortunately not… all the people involved in Altrock have
another daytime job. Otherwise, it would impossible to earn our
living with Altrock (or Yugen). It’s mainly a great passion. Our
aim is to go on, that in our times is a real adventure… But we have
to say that now the label is going well. We’re trustful in 2011;
this year we’ll release a dozen of new cd: four in February, as in
May and September.
How
difficult/easy is it to run a record label in Italy ?
Marcello
Marinone: At the moment it seems really difficult (not just in Italy,
I think). Substiantally there’s no enough audience for experimental
or “no mainstream” music. In fact, the followers of Altrock are
mainly from abroad. Some years ago, without Internet, Myspace and so
on, it would have been impossible such a job. On the other hand, we
found that releasing a consistent and high-quality catalogue was a
good choice: people know our “mark” – our musical line – and
come back to us for every release.
Just
run through and write one-two line(s) about each of your releases,
including music styles.
Marcello
Marinone: I’d like to talk about the “lines” of our cds.
There’s a main RIO-style line, represented by Yugen, Rational Diet,
Pika Pika Teart, Simon Steensland. In particular for the first three
ones, the main references are ‘900 music and composers like
Stravinskij, Bartok, Ligeti and others, and obviously great RIO
groups like Henry Cow and Univers Zero. Then we have really
interesting groups that try to melt different styles, from rock to
RIO, like Chance:Risiko (a very young group from Italy), Mirthkon
(from USA, an energetic group with relevant rock features with reeds
and vocals). In a more experimental direction, we have Kurai, a
project by Francesco Zago parallel to Yugen, with more space to
improvisation and atmosphere. Others groups are Aranis, with their
mixture of classical, minimalistic and RIO influences, and Finnegans
Wake. On Fading Rec. we released the first cd of Ciccada, a Greek
group that proposes a beautiful mixture of prog and folk music.
Running
a non-major record label is the art of how to get as many omelets as
possible from one egg. How is your finances and are you breaking even
or even going into profits ? What is the approx sales figures for
your albums ?
Marcello
Marinone: Sometimes you have to get many omelets from… quite
nothing! But if you work with attention and passion, and if you find
artists that are keen to cooperate with you, the results can be truly
amazing, even if we have an extremely-low-budget production. Some of
our releases were a loss of income, but in general we didn’t put
other money after the original investment to produce Labirinto
d’acqua.
“Profit” is not a proper term: we don’t personally earn money
from selling cds, and we re-invest every single euro to the next
ones.
I
guess you and many others share a passion for RIO and avant-garde
music. What made this genre such a truly fascinating genre and which
non- Altrock Productions RIO/avant-garde albums do you love most ?
Marcello
Marinone:
I think RIO is fascinating because it’s the real evolution of early
’70s prog rock music. Many symphonic prog fans are going to be
interested in a music that could evolve from
that clichés. For this reason, maybe it would bo more correct to
talk about Avant-prog instead of RIO. I think my friend Steve
Feigenbaum would agree about this… I always loved Henry Cow.
Certainly my favourite album is Western Culture. In the actual scene,
I really appreciated Avhak.
Francesco
Zago: Bands such as Henry Cow and Univers Zero show a unique feature
in rock music, that is joining rock sound and chamber and/or
contemporary music language. Henry Cow were the most intriguing band
in this sense.
What
is your signing policy and how do you deal with your artists ?
Marcello
Marinone: Normally bands provide us an audio master; if necessary, we
make a re-master and prepare artwork. Then we print and release the
cds, and make promotion for selling. We try to satisfy every band as
well as we can. We choose the bands mainly for their musical
proposal; for us it’s important that it fits our quality and genre
parameters. We are often involved in the production stage, trying to
give the right indications and, at the same time, without distorting
the artistic view of the band.
I
guess you are very happy with the Altrock Productions roster as it
is. But if given
the chance in a perfect world, which non- Altrock Productions artist
would you have loved to work with ?
Marcello
Marinone: I think there are many good bands in the world now;
if I have to choose some, probably I would say Jaga Jazzist and Jono
El Grande for AltrOck and Anglagard for Fading records.
LPs
are back in fashion like never before. Several industry analysts
believe LPs will replace CDs as the only physical storage format for
music. This in addition to digital downloads. Have you thought about
branching into LPs or are CDs your only physical products ?
Marcello
Marinone: We love this kind of support, and it’s a pity that cds
have quite completely substitued vynil. Yes, we’re thinking about
to release some of our cds on LP too. Probably during 2011 we’ll
begin to propose this sort of product. You
are also branching out with a new label called Fading Records. If my
memories serves me right; the excellent Ciccada debut album was the
first album on that label. Please tell us more about Fading Records
and you plans for that label.
Marcello
Marinone: Fading Records is devoted to prog and prog-like musicians.
Ciccada is a good example of our original idea: sometimes we could
call “prog”, but with some originality, in this case a beautiful
synthesis of 70s rock and folk. On Fading we’re going to release
Sanhedrin, a more classical prog group for Israeli, but definitely
not a “clone”. Then we’ll have the first cd by Paolo “Ske”
Botta, keyboard player from Yugen, another case of interesting prog
rock with Canterbury and some RIO influences.
Have
you had any bad experiences of any kind ?
Marcello
Marinone: Until now, fortunately not… What
is this and next year's release plan for Altrock Productions ?
Francesco
Zago: We have just released Pika Pika Teart, from Siberia, a really
challenging production... Then we’ll have the second cd from Factor
Burzaco (Argentina), Calomito (Italy), Sahnedrin (Israel) and Humble
Grumble (Belgium/Hungary). We’ll release these cds before the end
of February. Then we’ll have Abrete Gandul (Chile), October Equus
(Spain), Subtilior (Italy), Ske (Italy), Cucamonga (Argentina),
Camembert (France)… and others during 2011. I
may have touched upon this theme in another question, but what is
your thoughts about the music industry and it's future ?
Marcello
Marinone: We love to think that very little label like Altrock would
make difference in terms of quality. Today if you produce an artist
as any other “product” to sell, the music industry is doomed to
death. Obviously RIO-style and avant-prog group will never reach
great audiences, but this is not our aim. Then, probably digital
download will be a main feature in the future, and the net is a great
way to spread independent music.
Francesco
Zago: Personally, as a musician I’m not used to think about music
merely as “entertainment” (surely not in the sense of mainstream
radio, MTV and so on...). Through Altrock we have the opportunity to
explore different ways to propose music, both as a “high quality”
entertainment (I would say “culture”) and a form of
experimentalism, which is necessary to music as to anyother artistic
form of expression. Thank you to Francesco and Marcello for this interview The Altrock Productions homepage is here
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SaltyJon
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 08 2008 Location: Location Status: Offline Points: 28772 |
Posted: February 02 2011 at 11:14 | |
Awesome interview, and Marcello is a nice guy (as I assume Francesco is as well), good job as always!
Edited by SaltyJon - February 02 2011 at 11:14 |
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porcyville1
Forum Groupie Joined: March 18 2010 Status: Offline Points: 47 |
Posted: February 02 2011 at 14:34 | |
I think you are a nice guy too Jon! Thank you! |
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Man With Hat
Collaborator Jazz-Rock/Fusion/Canterbury Team Joined: March 12 2005 Location: Neurotica Status: Offline Points: 166178 |
Posted: February 02 2011 at 16:22 | |
Great interview! Easily my favorite modern day label. They have the midas touch. Didn't know fading Records released Ciccada...may have to hear that one now...I like the descriptions of it.
Can't wait for those new ones!
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Dig me...But don't...Bury me
I'm running still, I shall until, one day, I hope that I'll arrive Warning: Listening to jazz excessively can cause a laxative effect. |
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avestin
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 18 2005 Status: Offline Points: 12625 |
Posted: February 02 2011 at 16:44 | |
Fantastic label, one that while small, is in fact doing a wonderful and high-impact work. I personally don't think they've released anything that was even average; everything was very good and above. I can only hope they keep up this great work and keep releasing quality music from around the world.
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porcyville1
Forum Groupie Joined: March 18 2010 Status: Offline Points: 47 |
Posted: February 03 2011 at 08:17 | |
Thank you guys for the nice words...
A great responsibility for the new releases! |
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Syzygy
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: December 16 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 7003 |
Posted: February 03 2011 at 13:18 | |
Altrock is probably the most important label for RIO/Avant prog since Cuneiform and ReR emerged in the 1970s; the sheer quality of the material released is staggering, and anybody who's into the genre can buy any album and know that it will be worth listening to. Excellent interview, and long may the label run!
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'Like so many of you
I've got my doubts about how much to contribute to the already rich among us...' Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom |
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SaltyJon
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 08 2008 Location: Location Status: Offline Points: 28772 |
Posted: February 04 2011 at 00:03 | |
Aww, thanks. |
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TheGazzardian
Prog Reviewer Joined: August 11 2009 Location: Canada Status: Online Points: 8711 |
Posted: February 04 2011 at 02:41 | |
Agreed. AltRock is my fav label these days, and my goals for 2011 include finishing collecting all AltRock records... I have 7 so far, with 12 more on the way it may be hard to keep up but I'll have to try! |
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memowakeman
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: May 19 2005 Location: Mexico City Status: Offline Points: 13032 |
Posted: February 04 2011 at 12:15 | |
Excellent label, one of the most important nowadays indeed. Great interview! |
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Follow me on twitter @memowakeman |
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ratracer
Forum Newbie Joined: May 18 2017 Location: Portugal Status: Offline Points: 4 |
Posted: June 10 2017 at 02:58 | |
A regular visit to altrock productions has become a most to me...
Wishing all the best and the greatest of success... |
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