Revista The 13th Number 61 (Interviews)

AÑO: 6 | NÚMERO 61

THE 13th UN A REV I S TA I M A GI N A RI A

PIA FRAUS DARMAN MAYFLOWER MADAME

INDEX INTERVIEWS PIA FRAUS

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DARMAN

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MAYFLOWER MADAME

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[ Interview with Rein Fuks from Pia Fraus by Diego Centuriรณn.

Photographs: Joosep Volk. ]

PIA FRAUS: FROM ESTONIA TO JAPAN AND THE WORLD

Two years ago, in January 2018, we spoke with Rein Fuks about the release of Pia Fraus’ album "Field Ceremony" As our final question, we asked what the future holds for the band and he mentioned his desire to release a new album in 2020. With that amazing and determined accuracy, today we know that the "Hidden Parks" LP was released a few weeks ago... so in this interview, we explore the present and future plans of this intriguing dreampop band.

Link to the previous interview: https://issuu.com/revistathe13th/docs/the13th_n_42/36

Hi Rein, thanks for speaking with us today... I fondly recall our interview about your releasing "Field Ceremony." Tell us what has been happening with the band in the past two years.

Thanks for having us again :) To be honest, these two years has been the most active years of our career. We toured a lot in Europe, Canada, Japan, Taiwan and China, and so on.

I'm surprised that somehow we even found time and energy to record the new album. There are also some changes in the band. Our drummer Margus Voolpriit left the band to focus his projects, Wolfredt and Jan Helsing.

Our former drummer Joosep Volk is back on drums with new energy, and we're doing well as a band.

You just finished a tour of Estonia and Japan, including some dates with Ringo Deathstarr. How did these concerts go and what was the reception like? Is this your first time playing in Japan?

These concerts went really well. It's always nice to play to our Japanese fans, and of course it was big honor to us to play with Ringo Deathstarr. We're

under same label in Japan (Vinyl Junkie Recordings), and they organized the concerts. It was our third Japanese tour. First time we played there in 2008, when "After Summer" came out.

How did you come to work with Vinyl Junkie Recordings and how has that relationship developed over time?

First it happened in 2004 when they released "In Solarium" as a Japanese release with some bonus tracks. The contact came through our US label, Clairecords. Over the years they have been releasing all our albums and also a EP compilation called "Sailing on a Grapefruit Lake". I think It's good to have a label in Japan, because it makes things a bit easier for us and keeps us closer to our fans there.

Speaking specifically of the new album, you’ve said that it’s poppiest of all your albums. What experiences have influenced the creation and outcome for these songs?

I think it is the poppiest album that we have ever made. There are many songs with catchy choruses and hooks :) Also, the sound is more clear, less

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noisy. That is what John McEntire did for us. I have been a massive fan of his work, and luckily we had a chance to work with John.

John McEntire has made so many of my favourite records for Stereolab, The Sea and Cake, Tortoise, Teenage Fanclub, The High Llamas, Yo La Tengo, The Pastels and so on.

You’ve also mentioned that the album recording process was not easy. Why exactly?

The whole period was really intense.

I had one huge project at work, and it took a lot of time, and also the touring with the band. We played more gigs than ever. It was quite hard to focus on the recording. One thing was also that Margus decided to leave just a few weeks before we drum recording sessions. It wasn't easy at all, but we

did it :) I have read about your recurring dream of working with John McEntire. Please tell us about this dream ... which albums do you like most, whether as a musician or as an engineer or producer?

John has been an excellent musician and an outstanding producer. I know his work since the late 90s when we started Pia Fraus. It's always an exciting decision to who I want to make the next album. We have worked with the best sound guys in Estonia. Also with Norman Blake from The Teenage Fanclub. I think it's essential to move on and try new things. That's why I decided to write to John. I wasn't sure at all that I'll get any response from there. But... Now it's done :) John is not hiding your songs under

tonnes of reverbs and effects. He just makes your songs sound nice and bright. He has his own tricks.

My friend Bill Wells from Scotland said to me that John McEntire is the nicest guy he ever met. He also worked with John when he played in The Pastels.

How would you compare this new album to Pia Fraus’ previous works?

For those who do not know Pia Fraus yet, what would you tell them

about the music found on “Hidden Parks”?

It's the most positive and poppiest and clearest Pia Fraus album. Good point to start if don't know our music yet :) While I have you here, please tell me about "Ida Raadio" and your radio program.

Ida Radio is an underground radio station here in Tallinn, Estonia. The whole concept of this radio is cover an

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extensive range of music spectre. I have a show once a month, and it's called “Seksound in the Air”. I play my favourite music. From lo-fi to hi-fi :) What are your plans for the rest of 2020?

As we started our year with little tour, we're planning to finish it also with our first tour in US. I really hope that it's gonna work out. In general, the plan is to play as many shows as possible. Also I have some ideas how to celebrate the 20th anniversary of our first album (Wonder What It's Like) next year. It's gonna be quite exciting.

Finally, thank you for the possibility of conducting this interview. Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?

I want to thank all our fans around the globe. Thank you all for your support!

Can't make it alone!

Thank you Rein!

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[ Interview with Dario Mangiacasale de Darman by Benjamín York. Photographs: Valentina Cipriani ]

DARMAN: FROM ITALIA AND WITH MYSTICAL ASSONANCE WITH THE DHARMA

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Under the name of Darman is the Italian multi-instrumentalist Darío Mangiascasale, specifically from the city of Turin, who carries out this own project and we communicate with him before the departure of his third and new album “Necessità Interiore”, after his previous works “Four-leaved Shamrock” (2015) and “Segale Cornuta” (2017).

Once again we open the door of Revista The 13th to meet a new Italian artist.

Hi Dario, thanks for agreeing to answer our questions. And the truth is that we have almost one Italian artist by number and the quality is always excellent ... And to start this interview tell us about the scene in which you move in Italy.

who turns his feelings into music in its most intimate and pure form. Rock music is the dress that suits me best, managing to perfectly combine the archetypes of my subconscious, which I season with psychedelic brush strokes and songwriter embroidery.

Why Darman?

First of all, I'd like to say hello to you Benjamin and to all the readers of Revista The 13th. My name was tracked down by my father a long time ago. I was like 10 years old. One day I was going out with him, he was waiting in the car and when I opened the door, I saw that he was inserting in the car CD player a disc with the name “Darman” written with a marker. So I asked him who this Darman was, but there was no need for an answer, because the record started playing some songs I had recorded in my bedroom with the acoustic guitar. Darman is simply the union of my name Dario and my surname Mangiacasale, although actually I discovered a mystical assonance with the Dharma of Eastern religions, a coincidence that I really like.

Your first album “Four-leaved Shamrock” (2015) has a concept, a purpose and an objective, as a search to open the head of your listeners. Tell us about the decisions to make when creating a conceptual album.

I partially answered this very interesting question with the previous answer. In fact, in my music there is no pre-determined decision, it is all driven by the inspirational and artistic flow that pervades my mind and body. FourLeaved Shamrock talks about the importance of feeling part of a universe governed by larger mechanisms than anyone can think to manage and control, it is the search for love towards everything that surrounds us and an ode to uniqueness and magnificence of the gift of life, to the mystery of DNA.

Those readers who have not yet known your music, how would you describe it?

Basically, my music is what I am.

I am fortunate to be a visceral songwriter,

In the second album “Segale Cornuta” (2017), you talk about it being “the result of a perpetual, ambitious search”. Tell us about that search and if you came to the

desired result.

We are already close to the release of his third album, "Necessità Interiore", and you have already advanced with "Pubblicità Riflesso", what you can tell us about the new work...

“Segale Cornuta” is a record born in a very complicated moment of my existence, in which I found the strength to seek beauty in every single moment, the essence of human existence and the importance of our earthly journey. It was a revealing period, immortalized as a Polaroid snapshot in the 11 songs that make up the album. The artistic flow, in this case, traced in front of me a pretty clear path, very sweet and sour at the same time. “Segale Cornuta” can be defined as the beginning of the metabolization of some concepts that become more mature in “Necessità Interiore”, in particular the perpetual research, which is what MUST always move an artist's mind. If you bow down to the games of the music market or, more

simply, to the current fashion, you risk to lose your artistic vocation. “Necessità Interiore” (inner necessity) is a very eloquent title, from this point of view. It is the artistic nature that arises from the subconscious, following the dictate of the purest inspiration. It is a concept that I have always cherished within myself and that I have recently discovered also in some literary works of the genius Vasily Kandinsky.

What differences do you find with the previous works?

“Necessità Interiore” is a rich but more minimal album than the previous ones, which is enriched with different and more complex vocal solutions. It is an essential album as for musical times, especially compared to “Segale Cornuta” which featured some odd times, but it is more complex with respect to the harmony, which paradoxically make the work sound simpler and more accessible.

The amount of reproductions your

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videos have is incredible, I should ask you the secret, although surely, everything is based on a lot of work ... But if you want, you can tell us…

It is all based on the search for quality and on the desire to always look for something new, moving the bar upwards with each step that is taken. I think this aspect is perceived by the people who listen to my music. Quality always wins.

What are the plans for this 2020?

2020 opened with the release of the first single "Pubblicità Riflesso" and will culminate in April with the release of the album "Necessità Interiore". Also in April the tour will start: in the spring part I will be busy on a European tour and in the autumn on an Italian tour. It promises to be a very beautiful year, full of surprises, full of music (especially played live, which is the thing I like the most and that gives me the greatest satisfaction).

To end this interview and thank you for the time you have given us. I leave this last space for you to dedicate some final words to our readers…

Thank you again for the opportunity. To the readers: welcome to my music and to my inner world, in the space ship of my art. Hugs to you all.

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[ Interview with Trond Fagernes of Mayflower Madame by Benjamín York. ]

MAYFLOWER MADAME: DEALS A WICKED DOSE OF NORWEGIAN PSYCH-NOIR

In the pages of Revista The 13th this week, we have Mayflower Madame from Oslo, Norway, a brilliant band consisting of Trond Fagernes (vocals, guitar, bass) Håvard Haga (guitar) and Ola J. Kyrkjeeide (drums). Creating a texture that amalgamates post-punk with psychedelia, to date they’ve released an EP and their debut album “Observed in a Dream” (2016). Soon, on March 27, their second album “Prepared For A Nightmare” will be released so we welcome this conversation about this and also their previous works. With you now is the darkness of Mayflower Madame...

Hello Trond!!!! Thank you for allowing us to make Mayflower Madame known through your words.

Hello Benjamin! Thanks for your interest in the band and our music.

Mayflower Madame was formed in 2011 in a place that is ideal to explore your own identity. Tell us about that place where you started rehearsing...

Well, I can tell you that at first it didn’t feel ideal at all, but good rehearsal spaces are usually very expensive to rent (and sometimes hard to find) in Oslo so we ended up with a cheap room in a desolate industrial building. The room was in the corner of a big hall run by a carwash company and all in all the surroundings were really harsh and uninviting. I also remember that the sound was terrible on the first rehearsals; the room was not made for making music at all (there was no sound-proofing etc.) and at the start we had pretty cheap/ crappy equipment as well, which didn’t help of course. After a while though, we started to feel more at home in the industrial surroundings - it was actually inspiring rather than

depressing. There was no other bands rehearsing there and I think that was also to our advantage.

We sort of had our own, isolated space where we could make music uninterrupted without knowing (or caring) what others might think about it. I think both these factors contributed to shaping and creating our sound and identity as a band.

For those readers who have never listened to Mayflower Madame before, how would you describe your own music in your own words?

I often find our music a bit hard to describe myself, but genre-wise I guess you can’t go wrong if you call it a blend of psychedelia, shoegaze and post-punk. It’s often dark and cinematic, sometimes hazy and noisy, yet always with a melodic core.

How did you decide on the band’s name?

The band was partly named after the famed escort agency owner Sidney Biddle Barrows known as Mayflower Madam, although we added an -e at the end for extra obscurity. We were aware that it could make people

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curious and maybe that's part of the reason we chose it, but we would like to keep it open for interpretation if there's any deeper meaning behind it. All we can say, is that we liked the fact that the name has a mysterious quality to it (partly because Sidney was an exposer of dark secrets).

And we liked the sound of it - which is of course another reason why we chose it.

In 2013, “Into the Haze” was released with a dark psychedelia – a mixture between psychedelia and post-punk… and I think of that place where you were rehearsing…

Everything fits, the darkness and that claustrophobic atmosphere of this debut EP. Today, several years after that, how do you feel about that?

We had already found the key ingredients of our sound at that point and I can still enjoy listening to it sometimes. It feels «real», like the songs were conceived naturally, and it’s a nice document of where we were at that time, but I also think that we have developed a lot since then. First and foremost, I think we have a «richer/bigger» sound on our later releases (and hopefully the songs themselves are also better).

My favorite track from the first EP is «The Longing» and I have actually sometimes considered recording a new version of it.

If we talk about influences, who would you mention as musical references within the sound of Mayflower Madame?

It’s a good mixture of a lot of bands and artists. The first that comes to mind are Syd Barrett and Lee Hazlewood, some early post-punk

bands like The Cure and Bauhaus and some later shoegaze/neopsychedelic bands like My Bloody Valentine, Psychic Ills and A Place To Bury Strangers.

2016 brought your debut album "Observed in a dream”, exploring a more expansive sound, with many more psychedelic textures but with more rock that is dark and dirty. I feel that you better defined your sound in this work, expanding it. What are your own reflections on this debut album?

I absolutely agree with you, our sound is more expansive and better defined, and I’m still very proud of that album. I also think the production is much better than on the «Into the Haze» EP - from recording to mixing and mastering. If we were to re-record the first EP I think it would sound much better today, but on «Observed in a Dream» I would hardly change a thing.

Then came the "Premonition" EP in 2018 with tours in North America and throughout Europe. What would you say about this phase of Mayflower Madame's career?

The songs on the «Premonition» EP were first written for a second album, but we felt that the sound was too similar to «Observed in a Dream» so we decided to release them as an EP. We thought the songs were too good not be released at all and we also wanted some new material to add to our setlists for that year’s touring activities. We were satisfied with the EP (especially the title track is a personal favorite of mine) and the tours, but we simply felt that we needed more time to explore and create a new sound for the second album.

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Earlier, when speaking about this EP, you mentioned that the second album would be released in 2018, but we are now seeing a 2020 release date. What happened in these past 2 years that you’re only releasing your second album now?

We played a lot of shows in the first half of 2019 and in between we wrote a whole new set of songs for the album.

The second half was mostly dominated by mixing and label talks. These things take time so March 2020 was the earliest possible date. It was also important for us that it coincided with our upcoming US tour.

album's variety and wholeness.

"Swallow" is a love song - it's about the dependence and fragility one might feel in a relationship - involving both a fear of and a desire for submission.

I have had the possibility to listen to the new album. Considering how you’re sound and ideas have evolved since you formed, what should listeners expect to hear on this album this time around?

People can expect us to delve even deeper into our distinctive blend of psych-noir and psychedelia, but also an album that’s more varied and dynamic than our debut, exploring new sounds We’re approaching the release of and bringing in new elements. your new album "Prepared For A Nightmare", which is expected on To end this interview, we’d like March 27. And you’ve released the to thank you for answering these lead single "Vultures" and now just questions. I think the vast majority “Swallow” this week. Tell us about of our readers will feel that they these 2 songs. know Mayflower Madame better Compared to our previous stuff, through this interview. Thank you «Vultures» feels more hard-edged Trond!!!!!!! and perhaps also darker. There's still Thanks a lot, it was a pleasure. I elements of psychedelia and shoegaze, hope your readers will appreciate our but leaning more towards to a post- upcoming album and also check out punkish, almost industrial sound. our previous releases.

The lyrics revolve around feelings of excess, lust and greed, and how one h t t p s : / / m a y f l o w e r m a d a m e . sometimes can seem to push things bandcamp.com. further and further like we're waiting h t t p s : / / w w w . f a c e b o o k . c o m / and almost longing for everything to mayflowermadame/ burst. «Swallow», on the other hand, shows a dreamier, more pop-oriented ¡¡¡Thank YouTrond!!! side of the band. However, we still feel that it's true to our "signature sound" while also contributing to the upcoming

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The13th

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