Part 1
Name: Fabio Perletta
Occupation: Producer, composer, sound artist
Nationality: Italian
Current release: Fabio Perletta's Nessun Legame con la Polvere is out via Room40. Also available now is Integral, his second collaboration album with Asmus Tietchens via his own 901 Editions.
Recommendations: Books:
Byung-Chul Han, Vita contemplativa: In praise of inactivity (Polity, 2024)
Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017)
Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2021)
Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time (Penguin Books Ltd, 2019)
Ando. Complete Works 1975–Today (Taschen, 2020)
If you enjoyed this Fabio Perletta interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, and bandcamp.
Over the course of his career, Fabio Perletta has collaborated with a wide range of artists, including Nicolas Bernier, France Jobin, and Yann Novak.
[Read our Nicolas Bernier interview]
[Read our France Jobin interview]
[Read our Yann Novak interview]
Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in sound?
Definitely. My father is passionate about music, which has always been present in many of the family's activities, from parties with friends to road trips. I have several home movies as a child in which my father played music from the hi-fi system as a soundtrack. Since there was no editing software it was the only way, a bit rudimentary but to great effect.
The music that was often used was by Vangelis and Ennio Morricone, but also stuff by Pink Floyd and Italian songwriters. I remember the importance of listening to the whole CD in the car, from the beginning to the end. I still do that, my daily routine is shaped my music.
Do you experience strong emotional responses towards certain sounds? If so, what are examples for this – and do you feel there is a systematic or logic behind these sensations?
I wouldn’t say towards certain sounds but towards certain situations, for example when different sounds coming from different contexts overlap: phone calls, smartphone notifications, TV noises all happening in the same room literally drive me crazy. Infants crying don’t throw me at all as they might do to certain people.
I like piercing sounds like the chalk being rubbed on the blackboard or the fork scratching the plate: someone experiences goosebumps, but I don’t. I hate the sound of traffic.
Are there places, spaces, or everyday devices which intrigue you by the way they sound? Which are these?
I love empty spaces, whatever they might be, in which I can sense some sort of interplay between me and what happens sonically. In this respect, Tadao Ando’s architectural spaces are awesome.
I like the feeling of a very low, single sine wave frequency that suddenly drops, it creates a peaceful atmosphere. I love the sound of wood falling down or being cut, handled.
Generally speaking I am fascinated by sounds having a tiny, “bandpassed” spectrum.
For some, music equals sound, to others they are two distinct things. What is the relation between music and sound for you? Are there rules to working with sound, similar to working with harmony, for example?
It can be said that music is a subset of the larger category of sound but artistically speaking they coexist in my work. So, while music and sound (noise) can be organised, arranged, structured within the composition, they both fall within the broader category of auditory stimuli to me.
Melody can be interpreted as a sound having particular qualities (for example creating connections with visual perception) and not necessarily treated as a sequence of musical tones or notes with distinct pitches; vice versa a sound can be sensed as a tonal experience.
What were your very first active steps in terms of working with sound and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/learn being an artist/producer?
When I got my driving license my car only had a cassette player; the experience of transferring CDs to tape was very formative for me. Also, my Kenwood Hi-Fi system that I got when I was around 12 (I still have it and it’s still working) has a quite complex digital graphic EQ with adaptive functions and various reverb algorithms. I remember that I spent a lot of time trying to alter the sound.
Then the first looping machine came and it was such a turning point for me: I could layer sounds, incorporate guitar noises into the loop. The possibilities were honestly too many for a young musician in search of a voice but it was certainly fun.
It’s of crucial importance to practise constantly and daily. We learn by doing. To me, inspiration always comes from mistakes or stuff out of my control.
For your own creativity, what is the balance and relative importance between what you learned from teachers, tutorials and other artists on the one hand – and what you discovered, understood, and achieved yourself? What are examples for both of these?
Imitation is one of the most important steps for learning as a cognitive process. I still feel it’s of vital importance for an artist to learn from another.
I found out that trying to express one-self through art is one of the most exciting things. You acquire a different way of seeing and sensing the world from the perspective of art, which is wonderful.
Making art is a way of living and sharing what you achieve.
How and for what reasons has your music set-up evolved over the years and what are currently some of the most important pieces of gear and software for you?
My set-up has always evolved according to my needs. I started making music when I was 15 with guitar, analogue synthesizers, guitar pedals and samplers, playing a cross of free improvisation, krautrock and space rock; at that time I was into kosmische musik and loved bands like NEU!, Can, early Tangerine Dream, Faust, Popol Vuh, and so on.
[Read our Michael Rother of Neu! Interview]
[Read our Michael Rother of Neu! Interview about improvisation]
[Read our Tangerine Dream interview]
[Read our Roedelius of Cluster interview]
One of my huge influences was the microsound movement in the early 2000s and the possibility offered by computer software made me realise I wanted to work with sound in a different way, which reflected my natural inclination towards life. I am very meticulous, keen to details, and working digitally I could sculpt the sound with a high grade of precision.
I like Max and having a custom software to process the sound has always fascinated me, especially for live performance. However, for some reasons I stopped using it for live gigs and it has fallen out of favour, even though I go back to it occasionally. During the pandemic I got back to the modular which I used to use back in 2006-7 and created a system based on audio processing with samplers, granular devices, spectral delays (and microphones).
I like the instinctive approach that I lost when I used only software … In some way the computer distracts me from focusing on what I am doing. There are no good or bad instruments, it’s the way you use them to give them a value. In this regard, I have never truly become attached to a musical instrument.
Yann Tiersen, in a surprising statement, told me: "I feel more sincere with electronic instruments." Is that something you can relate to?
In some way … I grew up with electronic devices during my childhood in the early 90s. Those were the years of electronic agendas (I still have a Casio pocket digital diary), first digital cameras and other stuff like Tamagotchi and portable CD players. There was a clear idea of progress behind all of that, even though none of them were so powerful to really threaten our lives. The worse was yet to come …
That said, I like instruments I can find an engagement with, and this can happen also with non-electronic instruments, especially with objects that I use as sound makers.
Late producer SOPHIE said: “You have the possibility with electronic music to generate any texture, and any sound. So why would any musician want to limit themselves?” What's your take on that and the relevance of limitations in your set-up and process?
When I started making music I was fascinated by the endless possibilities offered by electronic means, algorithms, programming languages and so on. In the early 2000s there was this wave of trust and confidence in technology which was the foundation of what I did.
It is the word “endless” that I don’t like anymore. Unlike what we are (too) often convinced of, we are limited as human beings. Limitation is what makes us truly value the beauty of life. Can you imagine if we were immortal? Everything would be boring.
When you really realise how small you are, you begin to feel the power of life. Even in music, to me possibilities lie in embracing limits now, and it’s important to focus on a specific theme or concept or idea.
