http://conversemusic.co.uk/2009/10/27/dance-for-burgess-interview-download/I first came across Dance For Burgess when first single ‘Boy’ landed in my hands. A new wave garage rock effort, with hints of Magazine mixed in with Black Lips. The Milan-based troupe is back, after a quick band line-up shift and one drum machine later ‘Marinetti’ came, as did a more subdued DFB. Not any less quirky or charming as ‘Boy’ though, the bass still strutting past 4/4 drums and guitars not keeping to any kind of rhythm at all. It’s just that this latest release finds the group no longer shouting for the sake of shouting, but growling to remind you you’re not quite as sane as you thought you were.
You’ve recently had a member leaving, what position will they be leaving vacant and what are your plans for the group now?
We actually had two members leaving, a guitarist and the drummer, and we still don’t know why. The project is now composed by a guitarist and a bassist/singer, who already wrote all the songs. We both work a lot with effects and noise. We use a sampled drum to make you dance as much as we can. We are working hard to have our tracks finished for our first LP.
You can be quoted on saying: ‘Italian culture is plastic’ – how do you differ?
It doesn’t mean we differ. We all come to differ with respect to ourselves. It’s just a statement due to what is around us, due to our country subdued by plastic, no more recyclable, situations and people. We need a change, that’s what.
Your artwork is very horror film noir, who makes it and how does it represent your music?
The artwork for Brattwell Session is from Poème électronique, a piece of electronic music composed by Edgar Varèse. It took place in 1958 inside the Philips Pavillion at the Brussel’s World Fair, in an environment that combined music, film, light and architecture, designed by Iannis Xenakis under the direction of Le Corbusier. The artwork was made by Andrea Concari, a designer from Fiorenzuola, he used to be a drummer during the Italian coldwave period, which inspired us a lot.
We’d like to make you understand by yourself how does it represent our music and our visions, maybe attending at one of our shows.
Talk to us about the track you’ve forwarded for Converse Music…
Marinetti was written about a year ago, thinking about the tragedies of the modern world and the practical inefficiency of a development and a satisfaction limited guaranteed. 2009 is the 100th anniversary of the Futurist Manifesto, written by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and published on Le Figaro on 20 february 1909.
You sing in English, why not your native tongue?
We’d like to have our voice spread all over the world even though it would be better to have Italians arguing about and improving a message which, in most of the cases, is dedicated to them. We’ll try to have a tune in Italian, I promise.
-Nicholas Burman – Converse Music Writer