Music is something that helps us to express what we have inside in our souls… or just to be ourselves for a moment. We can definitely agree with the quote of Alberto Rosso: “I see the music creation process as a sort of purification, a moment of freedom.”

This Italian based producer, who composes the music under the mysterious name Mørkeblå, is just about to put out his first official record titled “Nowhere, OK”. During our interview Alberto reveals his music journey – from playing the guitar to field-recording and the current process of his music production. As well as explaining how the new release is different from his live gigs… So lean back comfortably and join us on the journey through microsounds and noises.

Hi Alberto, thank you for your time! So, at the beginning, could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hi, I’m an Italian guy (unfortunately haha)…listening to weird stuff and producing unstable music! Seriously: I’m 27, I work as a freelance translator and I also work in web-marketing and e-commerce…but producing music is my favorite job, of course. I am trying to spend more and more time on it, but sometimes it’s very hard to concentrate all my energies, especially when you also have to work in other “fields” in order to pay the bills and all that stuff. I know I am not saying anything new; this is the problem that 90 % of people producing underground music have to face…so I guess that, from this point of view, I am a very normal person.

How did you get into producing music?
It all came very naturally; I started to play guitar when I was a teenager but I stopped after 2 years…I wasn’t interested in learning how to “play” an instrument and I started to collect a lot of vinyls, cds and tapes for something like 10 years…without pauses. Then I became to feel “oppressed” by all this lifeless objects in my room…and I felt like I had to “give life” to something else…to produce something alive. Actually what I create has become for me a sort of cathartic process, a good way to express all my feelings (good and bad ones) in the most spontaneous way I can. I don’t feel special at all for that; I just like to put my anxiety, joy, frustration, completeness…whatever…into my music.

You just revealed a short teaser to your newest piece called “Nowhere, OK”.
In comments to the video you said “All my effort and pain is in it”… is there any special event or feelings related to making “Nowhere, OK”? What’s the story behind this record and the title of it?
“Nowhere, OK” is the title of the album out on the Brighton label Where to Now?; It’s also my first “official” release. The images in the video teaser were filmed and edited by Sara Cattin in the Netherlands. I used its “entire version” a lot of times during my live-sets and we decided to create a short teaser of the record from it. The music in “Nowhere, OK” is much more introspective and experimental if compared to my livesets, where I usually play the more “rhythmical” side of Mørkeblå. This album is the result of some different moments of recording and editing and, as a consequence, it’s a sort of portrait of what the project is right now. The process of creation was definitely longer than expected for the three tracks included in “Nowhere, OK” (from April to December 2013).
This work means a lot to me and of course it’s full of feelings and emotions, but especially of personal memories. I don’t want to bother people with my stories and issues, but the title probably needs an explanation. The initial purpose of the record was to concentrate on the microsound, creating a sort of non-lieu, some kind of nothingness made with noises, granular synthesis and field-recording. But then things became more and more simple, so clear that, during the compositions, the tracks were almost totally and deliberately de-structured. “Nowhere, OK” is for me simplicity uniquely based on feelings and experiences belonging to non-lieux. The funny thing is that Nowhere is also the name of a place in Oklahoma…

Could you tell us more about the exclusive video you have shared with us?
This video is a manipulation I made from some shots I took with a friend of mine, Utku Tavil. It was planned to be used for a live show, but that didn’t work well. I discovered those images and I just decided to distort and melt them together…creating something very different. It’s more or less what I did with the sound. “Moolooite” was a loop I recorded from an old synthesizer, then I processed it through various effects: drones, echoes etc…you’ll tell me what the result looks and sounds like!

It’s amazing! Anyway, I read at your biography that you created loops, noises and glitches from tapes and vinyls using microphones and tape recorders. How did this process change (if so)? How do you compose music these days?
It was something I was doing for fun. Then I started to create my music in a more “standard” way, using my computer, synths, drum machines, objects, etc. Sometimes I still like to work with tapes live and also in studio. What I would like to do in the future is to be able to play live using only machines and without a computer…I am working on it but that’s quite difficult, especially if you have to travel a lot…

What does the process of creating music mean to you?
As I told before, I see the music creation process as a sort of purification, a moment of freedom. When I write some tunes I just let my emotions flow…sometimes what comes out is good, sometimes it’s horrible…I just don’t plan that. Maybe I should…

Your collaboration with Sara Cattin came as an audiovisual work. It seems to me that connecting images or let’s say visual art to music is important to you, right?
This is a good question. Music and images have a very strong connection for me. I think I played only a couple of live shows with no visuals. Both an audio and a video teaser of the album were published, so…yes; I guess I can say it’s very important for me to have my music connected with images. In electronic music there are plenty of live-shows with visuals, but most of them are not a “whole thing”. Sometimes visuals are just considered as something more. In my opinion videos have to complete the music only if it’s necessary…I felt like it was necessary for me…and for this reason I don’t know if in the future I’ll do the same again. The collaboration with Sara started few years ago and it’s very important though; we have already planned a video-clip with some material she shot in Israel…hopefully it will be ready in the next months for a future release.

I can hear in your music some kraut or psychedelic elements. Is there any specific artist(s) who influenced your approach to the music?
Well, I think my music is a melting of many influences and, yes, psychedelia and krautrock had a big influence in it. I love Nick Drake, Harmonia, Popol Vuh, Klaus Schultze just to say a few, but I am also listening to very different stuff; from noise to ambient, from jazz to musique concrète…so I really don’t know if this kind of music will still influence my works in the future…

Who or what you are listening to at the moment?
Uhm…in the last days I haven’t been listening to any music, but the the last albums/tracks I’ve listened to and really enjoyed are by: Lotide, Karen Gwyer, Roly Porter, Von Tesla, Cage Suburbia, Weightausend, Teresa Winter, Wanda Group, Rejections, Imre Kiss and XIII…

What does Mørkeblå mean and why did you choose this artist name?
Mørkeblå is the name of a color in Norwegian; it means “dark blue”. I chose this name because I wanted to pay an ironic tribute to my music roots. I was a lot into black metal as a teenager; sometimes I still listen to it…and many BM bands in the 90’s came from Norway, Sweden and Finland… – I’ve studied foreign languages but I’ve never learnt Norwegian nor I have never been to Norway. I am really fascinated by that country and I want to do both these things as soon as possible; it would also be great to play there…I recently discovered that there’s this new small Norwegian pop-band named Mørkeblå…maybe I should ask them some collab…hahaha

What’s next for Mørkeblå? Any gigs or new collaborations?
I have some more releases kind of “planned”, but I have to work a lot on my own in order to see if I still like the music I recorded in the last months or if something else, completely new, needs to be created. I played enough gigs in 2013 so right now I want to concentrate on production and recording as much as possible. I have another project with Luca Sigurtà and Rainbow Lorikeet and it’s called Awkwardness…you should probably expect something about us in the near future…

OK, looking forward to it! Thank you for your time!
Thank you very much!

“Nowhere, OK” will be released on the Brighton label Where to Now? at the end of February 2014.