Neige, what is the record (or the records and the artists) that changed your life?
Well, there are many records that changed my life. The first one was probably « Nevermind » of Nirvana, that introduced me to rock music. Then as a young teenager I discovered extreme metal with « Cruelty and the beast » of Cradle Of Filth. That’s certainly not the best metal record ever ahah but it’s the first one I listened to in this genre, so it made quite a big impression on me. Later on I would discover all the 90’ s Norwegian black metal scene that I still really like now. After that I went into rock, indie rock, post punk, dark wave and shoegazing with bands like Massive Attack, The Cure, Joy Division, The Chameleons, Dead Can Dance, Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, etc… The last album that made a big impression on me is the album « Visions » by Grimes. It’s a weird one, but I just love it.
Shelter’s music seems to be a beautiful soundtrack of life. Do you have some films or directors that could be represent your songs in a right way?
I love movies like American Beauty, that are poetic, thoughtful and spiritual. I also love Hayao Miyazaki movies. In my opinion he is one of the greatest artists of our time.
The new sound (very interesting for me – i love Slowdive and Sigur Ros – ) of Shelter will be a starting point for the future works?
Not really. I would say « Shelter » is a stand out in the Alcest discography. I think the next record will come back to the deep essence of the band, that is in records like « Souvenirs d’un autre monde » or « Ecailles de lune ». But of course still very different, as we don’t like to repeat ourselves. It will just be a return to the otherworldly side of Alcest.
From what ,certainly, today we should “SHELTER” us?
Well, the world is not a perfect place, especially these days. There would be thousand reasons for people to have shelters that could help them to still feel good and hopeful.
What are the most important things for Alcest as common people?
Same as everybody I guess, find happiness on a daily basis. Find an equilibrium between all the aspects of our life, and an inner peace.
Xymox , originally formed in Holland in 1983 was one of the pioneers of the dark and electronic music, now as known Darkwave. In 2014 the word Darkwave is still OK to describe who are Clan Of Xymox in the music scene?
Well, I should hope our style is a bit wider than that, but in general when one want to put a label on a music style you can describe us that way, I have no problem with that. Since Clan Of Xymox uses a lot of synths, keyboards but also guitars and bass we also can be defined into other categories as dark electro or even electro gothic wave. In any case people would get the drift.
Dead Can Dance, Cure and Joy Division (but also new order and sisters of mercy) or other obscure bands of the period. How many has been fundamental for the sound of Clan of Xymox. There are other bands that are so important to understand your moods?
We started making music in the period these bands all started as well, so we have our roots in these kind of genres. To us the choice of instruments and moods was the most important one in order to start to write music. With the same attitude as those fore mentioned bands we worked at our songs and contributed to the genre as well.
Do you know some gothic/dark/wave italian bands?
yes (quali?….me lo dirà la prox volta che abbiamo più tempo…..)
The record (vinyl or cd) that has changed your life.
There are lots of them and the best to honor these are just mentioning our release of “Kindred Spirits” where I covered the songs of bands which were important to me. This album is an ode to these bands and I am glad we got so many good reactions on it.
Giuseppe Bellobuono
