PREPARED GUITAR: Luigi Archetti 13 Questions

Luigi Archetti (1955 in Brescia, Italy)

Archetti is established since 1965 in Zurich, Switzerland, where he lives now. He has worked as a visual artist (painting, drawing, installation, video) and musician (composition, experimental music, improvisation, audio Electronic Music, electric guitarist). Luigi Archetti's artistic work revolves around the interface between art and music, which he aims to make tangible in a variety of ways.

He played in various bands like Guru Guru, Alienstalk, Luigi Archetti / Bo Wiget, or Tiere Der Nacht (with drummer Mani Neumeie ) as well as in projects, solo performances with video projection, theater, film and diverse musical settings in various formations, for example with: Urs Blöchlinger, Urs Voerkel, Hubl Greiner, Joachim Irmler (Faust), Ellen Christi, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Makigami Koichi, Joachim Irmler (Faust), Taku Sugimoto, Bill Horist, Michio Yagi, Dieter Moebius (Cluster), Anton Bruhin, Iva Bittová, Christi Doran, Damo Suzuki (Can), Michael Caroli (Can), Jürgen Engeler (Krupp), Michael Heisch, Claudio Lodati, Ellen Christi, .

In his installation-based stagings he uses drawing, painting, video and sound to create tense and highly aesthetic spaces and complex reference systems.

He gave concerts among others at the festivals "Sound Art", Bern, Schaffhausen Jazz Festival, Knitting Festival, New York and Mutamenti Festival, Bellinzona.He worked in several music-theater projects with, among other things: with 'Meg Stuart' - Damaged Good Company with the improvisational piece Auf den Tisch! in Vienna and Salzburg.

Luigi Archetti - Track 04 Fragments on Speed, Slowless and Tedium

The vocabulary of the music manifests itself not only in ideas and the way works are realized, but also in the direct use of objects and concepts from this genre.

Luigi Archetti stages the space as an image carrier in which various impulses – visual and tonal – encounter one another. His last Work Null I / VII (Die Schachtel, 2015) resumes his electronic work, in the border of material and lucid vibrational and droning suggestions.

What do you remember about your first approach to music?

The immediate, direct, poetic and suggestive power of music. The directness, the urgency, the emotional level of the contact, the level of reflection on sounds and noises - their relationship......

Can you describe a sound experience that you believe contributed to your becoming a musician?

Listening to insects (and other animals), listening to landscapes, listening to the body, listening to the world (including played music).

Which was the first and the last record you bought with your own money?

The first (Vinyl) Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced?
The last one (CD) John Cage Organ2 / ASLSP (Halberstadt Project)

How‘s your musical routine practice?

Play, create sounds, hearing, hearken, listen in the sound, listen thorugh noise, think about what you hear, reflection, listen again..... again play.

Perpetual oscillation between sound generation and sound reception. Watchfullness.

Which work of your own are you most surprised by?

My last released CD - Box: Zero I - VII on the Milano label Die Schachtel, Milano. Surprised by his consequences, radicalism and the "long breath" in the transformation.

What‘s the relevance of technique in music, in your opinion?

When music is being created, it must be perfect, enlightening, lucid, intelligent, real on his idiosyncrasy. The technique here must be the best to implement the conceived music as accurately as possible. All techniques are possible. The music is supposed to be in the first place during his performance and then, the technology. Technical issues are very important and urgent to consider, but the priority is clearly the music in their wholeness and authenticity.

Why do you need music? Can we live without music?

Music creates awareness. Music creates differentiation. Music is (in summary) a mystery (and that's just fine.....). Music is a cultural product that I do not want to miss in life, in my environment. A society without music is unthinkable!

Tell me one impossible project do you like to realize?

A big mandolin orchestra so I'd can write and develop in the near future a bunch of compositions to be played by them.

What are the challenges and benefits of today‘s digital music scene?

I consider an advantage the availability, the dissemination, the easy digital music exchange, especially in the area of " marginal types of music " as experimental music...

Depict the sound you‘re still looking for, or the sound you‘d like to hear.

I'm day in day out surprised by sound. Perhaps their pursue could not relax me, maybe, maybe can do it again their "establishment"....

Anyway I react strongly to sounds, to their provocations, charming, thrill, surprise, sensitize and his poetically and intellectually possibility to speak to me through their materiality.

How do you feel listening to your own music?

At the context in which I listen to my own music it's very exciting. When composing (ie the concrete work with sounds) I have an " analytical " and research-based ear.

What special or extrange techniques do you use?

Circular System. I deliver myself sounds that I then (live) continue to use, alienate them again, reuse, etc. Everything in an "analog domain" with no computer or otherwise fixed sounds.

Which is the main pleasure of the strings? What are their main limitation?

It's fascinating how strings are made to vibrate and how they sound, precisely : how to use their sound (off). Stringed instruments (especially the electric guitar) is for me an inexhaustible " sound- supplier".

Tell me one musical work which has provoked a change in your music.

When I first heard a large symphony orchestra. Its abundance and the its strong presence has impressed me deeply. Like most played pieces that I like to not remember, but in particular I remember the sounds of the strings. The sound of the lush rosin enriching violin bows.

What is your relationship with other art disciplines?

My artistic work revolves around the intersection of art and music that I want to make experienced in many different ways. Through my installative productions and through drawing, painting, video and sound, I try to make visible high voltage aesthetic spaces and complex reference systems. Music's vocabulary manifests itself not only in the ideas and the performance of the works, but also in the direct use of objects and conceptual-arising from this division. I stage the space as an image carrier, in which various stimuli - visual and aural - meet.

Where are your roots? What are your secret influences?

All which owns spirit, intelligence, strength, authenticity and enlightening poetry. This naturally includes also the strange, the bulky, the shocking ....

What would you enjoy most in an art work?

His capacity of ask questions.

If you could, what would you say to yourself 35 years ago, about your musical career?

.... verfolge deine Spur.......
.... Track your track.......

What quality do you most empatize with in a musician?

Originality, authenticity and inspiration.

Which living or dead artist would you like to collaborate with?

Claudio Monteverdi

What instruments and tools do you use?

(Live): an electric guitar and small (analog) machine......

What is the most recent musical experience that has attracted your attention?

The experience of inertia, the silence, the duration and materiality of sound.

What projects are you working on now and what does the future hold?

Dubbing my own videos. Work on new solo projects or in company of other musicians.

Selected Discography

2015 Null I - Null VII
CD-box / 7 cd's
Die Schachtel, Milano 2015

2014 There
www.domizil.ch

2013 Im Westen Nicht Neues
Ian Anüll / Luigi Archetti / Lux Lindner
Ultimate Records

2012 Null II / Null III
Die Schachtel

2012 Silent Surface II
Luigi Archetti & Jan Schlegel
Unit Records

2010 Null
Die Schachtel

2010 Aktion ‎
Ian Anüll / Luigi Archetti / Marc Zeier
Ultimate Records

2010 Frozen Solid
Luigi Archetti & Michael Heisch
Creative Works CW 1055

2009 Low Tide Digitals
Luigi Archetti / Bo Wiget ‎
Rune Grammofon

2009 中国制造
Ian Anüll / Luigi Archetti / Marc Zeier
Ultimate Records

2008 Niederländische Sprichwörter
Luigi Archetti (Guitars, mandolin, electronics)
Michael Heisch (Double-bass, E-bass, electronics)
Creative Works Records, Schweiz