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Gothica For being a band named Gothica, this band doesn't sound awfully much like Goth music if you ask me. I would rather say that this is a band which has succeeded pretty well in carrying the torch that bands like Dead can Dance passed on in the past. Gothica is an Italian duo consisting of Alessandra Santovito and Roberto del Vecchio, two very skilled musicians who perform a magical brand of etherial music with a certain hedonistic feel aswell as a feel of unquestioned musical and poetical aristocracy. Much of what this band has achieved until now is centered around the myths of ancient Greece and Rome but the songs are not necessarily soundtracks to these myths. Instead, the poetic mind of Alessandra has rendered her own versions of her cultural heritage and the results are timeless values, sung out over a veil of quality music, carved into plastic by Cruel Moon Int. To find out more, read this interview which Alessandra answered during a couple of hectic days of studio activity in late januari 2002. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ECTONAUT: You released your debut album Night Thougths in october 2000. Well, some time has passed now since its release so I guess this would be the appropriate time to ask on how it has been greeted by the crowd and if you still are satisfied with how it turned out. Was it a succesful debut album according to you? ALESSANDRA: Our listeners, critics, magazines have written splendid words about us. We are extremely grateful to them for their support. If you just read the messages that some people have left in our guestbook, you'll notice how much they care about us. Furthermore, some of these messages are very poetical! Therefore, we think Night Thoughts was a succesful debut album. ALESSANDRA: The Cliff Of Suicide will be released on Cruel Moon International too. We should finish recording it at the end of February and then it depends on CMI when the CD comes out. It should be released around spring. We're proud of our new album and we're quite sure our listeners will appreciate it too. In our opinion, it's an album full of passion and inspiration. ECTONAUT: Have there been any major changes in your sound or will it still sound like Gothica did on Night Thoughts? ALESSANDRA: It's important for us to improve our sound year after year in order to express our feelings, our art better. Regarding The Cliff Of Suicide we're happy to say that our sound has progressed very much in this album. However, the Gothica' style is still recognizable. Some of the main changes are the orchestral arrangements and my way of singing. The new album talks about the loss of strength to keep trying, talks about dreams, desires. ECTONAUT: As the title of the new album is The Cliff Of Suicide … is the concept of the new album suicide related? ALESSANDRA: This title comes from a song of this CD which has the same title. This song talks about nature and suicide. We got our inspiration from a cliff here in Vasto. Nearby, there was a city in ancient times. Now there are only some sunken ruins. This place is wonderful for its natural beauties, and yet some people have committed suicide there. Actually, some songs represent the second part of the travel that we began with Night Thoughts in the realm of death. ECTONAUT: Most of the tracks on Night Thoughts were old tracks that had already appeared on demos and compilations and they had been created over a 5 year period. On the new album however, I suppose there will be mainly new material that has been created during the last 1,5 years. Has it been harder for you to complete this album due to you, having much shorter time to compose music and write lyrics than before? ALESSANDRA: We and CMI decided that our first album should collect most of our main songs. Some of them were old and we have perfected them, we didn't need five years to compose them. Anyway, now we have better knowledge and tools to speed up our work. What we find difficult is to reconcile our jobs with music. ALESSANDRA: We compose several melodies at the same time, driven by inspiration. Then we develop them during the same time. In the end we refine our songs one by one, piece by piece. ECTONAUT: Your music reminds of old Dead can Dance (i.e Yulunga) and I also see some similarities in your working methods (you are a male and female act that use several guest musicians on your recordings). Are you influenced by Dead can Dance in any way? What are your influences really? ALESSANDRA: Most of our similarities are accidental ones, for example Roberto and I are a couple in life not only in music. Dead Can Dance is a band that we love. We have the same musical influences and indeed their sound is a gift for us. ECTONAUT: While listening to the music Gothica, I visualize satyrs dancing in the woods and the vicious rampages of the menades of Dionysos, god of extacy and delight. I also visualize dark labyrinths and ancient mediterranean palaces that are half concealed by mist, half illuminated by moonlight. This leaves me with the conclusion that your music is definitely very dark and mysterious. Is this just my own interpretion of your music or is it feelings and pictures like this that you wish to bestow upon the listener? ALESSANDRA: When I read splendid definitions like yours, I understand that I have succeded in my intent: to communicate the desire of dreaming, the marvels of literature, art, legends of the past, and mysteries to the listeners. ECTONAUT: Is darkness a fundamental ingredient in Gothica or could you imagine doing something more lucid in the future? ALESSANDRA: We feel impelled to write this kind of evocative, mysterious music. Until we require these sensations, these reflections, we will play this kind of music. ECTONAUT: The myths of ancient Greece and Rome seem to have an important role in Gothica and you even have a myths section on your homepage. Why's this? Have myths always been one of the essential elements in Gothica or is this rather a direction that Gothica have been developing towards during the years? ALESSANDRA: When I was a child, I read some Greek mythological and epic stories and I fell in love with them. Now that I am grown up I'm still in love but the myths have a deeper symbolic meaning for me. For instance, Penelope is waiting for Ulysses in the Odissey by Homer, whereas my Penelope is waiting for death. If you go on in reading my poem and know in rough outline Homer's story, you will notice other parallelisms. But the most important thing is to go beyond the phrases and try to identify yourself with the figure of this woman, who is suffering because she knows that her destiny is already decided and that she can not escape from it. Penelope can only wait and erase all her dreams. She resembles those who, sometimes in their lives, have lost hope and even the pleasure of dreaming. Regarding Proserpina, I feel not only charmed but spiritually near to this figure. Her labyrinth is our labyrinth, Proserpina is a victim of the ineluctability of life. The relationship between Proserpina and Nature is also interesting: when she is in the underworld on Earth it is winter. Misanthropy is symbolized by Medusa in our homonymous song, this feeling hisses slowly, overshadows our minds, changes us into stones like this mythological subject. ECTONAUT: Will there be any tracks based on myths and legends on the new album? Would you like to tell us about them? ALESSANDRA: There is Under the dock leaves which talks about fairies. We would prefer to talk about it when our CD is released. ECTONAUT: I have to admit that the first time I heard the name Gothica, I expected it to be another new band playing average goth music. I was surprised however when I first heard tracks like Medusa and Spirit Dance and learned that your sound is far from Goth music. Don't you think that your name can be a little bit misleading? ALESSANDRA: We chose the name Gothica because it has several important meanings for us. Gothic literature is one of our favourite genres and above all it is the literature of mystery, the supernatural, ancient suggestions, romanticism, spiritualism and you can find a bit of all these things in our music and lyrics too. Furthermore the gothic cathedral, with its summits that stretch upwards, as if to touch the source of light, to raise the spirit, is a good metaphor of what we feel when we play music, when we are plenty of sentiments. The name Gothica also shows our love for all forms of art because in different periods of time and in different ways, the gothic style involved different kinds of art such as painting, sculpture, architecture and literature. We would like our music to provoke a feeling of sublime in the listener. I use the word sublime with the same meaning that Edmund Burke (1729-1797) gave to this word. Burke defined the sublime as a particular feeling which is typical of gothic literature and so, of all fantastic literature which developed from gothic. ECTONAUT: You recently recieved a scholarship from the music school of Vasto, a proof of your musical skills. For how long have been playing music and when was it that you started to compose your own music? How many instruments can you play? ALESSANDRA: I have always had a burning passion for music. When I was a child I began to play the piano, the transverse flute, percussions but never seriously only to enjoy myself. About 6 years ago I began to study opera singing seriously, I found my great passion. Click here to enter Gothica's homepage Gothica can be reached through the follow E-mail address: gothica@tin.it |
ECTONAUT: You have entered the studio to record your second full-lenght album entitled The Cliff Of Suicide. When is it scheduled to be released and what can you tell us about this album in general? Will it be released on 
ECTONAUT: Tell us about the song-writing process of Gothica. How do you work when you compose your songs? Do you create one track at a time or do you create several tracks simultaneously? Does it take much time to complete a track? Do you write the lyrics before the music or the other way around etc.?