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Name: Paolo Dellapiana
Nationality: Italian
Occupation: Multi-instrumentalist, composer, sound artist, improviser
Recent release: The new Larsen album Golden Leaf, a collaboration with Alessandro Sciaraffa, is out via Important.
Recommendations: Anselm Kiefer's work and Björn Larsson's (Sweden) autobiographic volume Besoine de Liberté.

If you enjoyed this interview with Paolo Dellapiana of Larsen and would like to find out more about his music, visit Larsen on Facebook. To find out more about Larsen, read our interviews with the other band members:

[Read our Roberto Maria Clemente interview]
[Read our Marco Schiavo aka Il Bue interview]
[Read our Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo interview]

Over the course of their career, Larsen have collaborated with a wide range of artists, including Xiu Xiu, Martin Bisi, and Lustmord.

[Read our Xiu Xiu interview]
[Read our Martin Bisi interview]
[Read our Lustmord interview]



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

I started when I was 15, handling my parents' turntable (a sort of classical music records scratching).

I understood that some sounds had an incredible effect on me.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

I don’t know exactly what happens in my body when listening but I perfectly know what happens when I’m not listening: I immediately fall into withdrawal, really hard withdrawal. I can not do without it.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

Searching and searching and searching, into unusual sounds and noises, into unusual instruments, into unusual playing techniques and technology.

I’m still searching.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

Drifting, I feel myself drifting away, following instinct and that has so many influences in my music world as a listener and overall as an artist.

Last year's new instrument choice is exemplary: random functions, not easily reproducible sounds and so on …

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

Again drifting, driven by an always growing instinct.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

I guess my instinct is never perfect and ever evolving so ... Timelessness could be so boring!!!

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

Definitely electronic magic boxes and synths (starting from beloved Roland Jupiter 4 up to modular synths and other bizarre stuff) but even acoustic instruments like accordion or metallic percussion. The most promising strategy is mixing and crossing all of them.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

After a night spent overthinking and a rough awakening, a working day in my architecture agency (half of my life) thinking about music creation, then an alcoholic night in the rehearsal studio (second half of my life) thinking about architectural composition.

Good? Bad? I don’t know but till now it has worked well. Overthinking sleep is inevitable.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

Not so easy. Creative processes are never the same. In recent years and on recent albums, after so much time spent playing, improvising is the most recurring process instead of a very conscious composition.

Probably right now improvising has become a very “conscious process”.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

Interesting question! I love private music creation but I always miss collaboration and sound sharing.

Again, mixing both constellations could be the best feeling and could produce the best results, successfully influencing each other.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

People need  music, no music makes people sad.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

Music is my way to balance when I am in need and is my way to chaos when I am in need. It is my way for better or for worse. That I cannot do without should be a reason.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?

Music is science in a certain way and science is definitely music! I’m sure! There is no need for them to reveal anything about each other.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I guess everybody can express themselves in their favorite way.

There is no absolute merit hierarchy. But I do know that while my music doesn’t scare people away, my cups of coffee are disgusting.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

Music and sounds in general are very physical. They hit eardrums physically and they generate an immediate physical reaction and stimulation before any thought. No way.

I guess there is no carrier so perfect, efficient, real. Nobody can be indifferent. Good or bad music.