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With the relentless Indie bandwagon still kicking up dust the length and breadth of the country, the return of one of Italy's finest young collectives, Querelle, could not have come at a more welcome time. Having just released their self titled mini album, featuring seven hauntingly stark tracks full of passion and compassion, disarmingly stunning frontman Gypsy takes some time out from their recent gigging frenzy to chat about eventually releasing some material, Bowie's work ethic, and what it's like to be “a guineapig for the globalization culture”.
“I really feel like I am a bastard son of a bastard time” muses Gypsy. Gigwise wonders how anyone so fragile to look at can create such powerful music, not only on record but in the flesh too. We soon realise that it's his strength of intellect and conviction pushing the life force of Querelle, and as a whole band, their political and philosophical edge is intrinsically genuine. Elaborating on his rather abrupt initial statement, he explains “English is not my first language, but I have always written (songs) and sung in English. I have never written in Italian, never sung in Italian. And that's not a deliberate thing, it's just how it happened since I was a teenager..I feel like globalization is taking over at a scarily fast rate, and myself and my generation, we are the guineapigs for what is essentially like a cultural experiment.”
Signing to the relatively unknown Sink and Stove label despite some other pretty hot label interest, he explains his affection for the smaller, nurturing environment in which he now finds himself and the band making music in; “It's unavoidable: if you sign to a major label, you are bound to release shit at some point. There is no other way, you will be reduced to creating 'FM' friendly material for the masses.” Influenced heavily by Sonic Youth, The Cure, My Bloody Valentine and early Hole (“before Courtney turned into whatever it is she has since become”),their sound remains gorgeously uncorrupted and definitely echoes with the freedom that comes alongside smaller label support. However, scathing though his attack, he is a man of reason and goes on to add that “obviously bigger labels help you to reach more people, and that really is the vision of this band, to reach people. So maybe in the future we will sign to a bigger label...but at the moment, Sink and Stove are doing such a fantastic job. I love that company. They will be a label to talk about.”
Other bands you may well find neatly stacked up in the band's CD collection include Radiohead, Nirvana, and a multitude of Jazz albums. “We absolutely adore jazz, and it has in ways influenced our music, subtly and then again, at times quite obviously too. We all listen to a lot of jazz, it's one of my favourite genres”. Talking of genres, it's indeed very hard to pinpoint this band, and this is perhaps what makes them so damn irresistable. “During the bands' previous incarnation, we were really doing the post-punk thing, but now, we are a lot more experimental and still we are growing, we are finding our sound, but we are happy along the way.” Certainly not disposable music by any stretch, their full on assault of the senses can be, at times, entirely engulfing. After pondering for quite some time on our parting question, Gypsy decides that the person he would most love to work with alive or dead would be David Bowie. Never a shrinking violet, he hastens to specify “the early Bowie. Not where he's at right now. We are much better than him now”. Arrogant? Confident? Deluded? The 'Wise thinks not.... but you decide.
