The Talent and the Spark of Romina Daniele: Interview on Spannung

JANUARY 2016

Industrial Revolution:

New Interview

In the Press Review section, we present the article and interview by Giovanni Rossi titled "The Talent and the Spark of Romina Daniele." The text offers an examination of the value of methodological commitment applied to vocal research and introduces an extensive conversation with the artist, focusing on the genesis of the triple album Spannung, the link between voice and consciousness, and her main constellations of philosophical and musical references.

Michel Petrucciani said: "Genius does not exist, only hard work exists". I don't agree; there have been several geniuses in the world of music, but in my opinion, the statement of the phenomenal French pianist completely hit the mark on one point: without hard work, any talent can fade away. Without hard work, talent cannot blossom; it remains a hidden diamond in the gray rock. Talent alone is not enough; you need to know how to cultivate, enhance, defend, and grow itday by day, aware of the gift you have received and the responsibility of having to make the most of it. There have been many talented artists who lost their careers due to a lack of foresight and commitment, but those who dedicated the utmost attention to their talent, day after day, will never be forgotten. When I think of Romina Daniele and her vocal talent, I can only think of all this, because she not only has an extraordinary voice—she didn't limit herself to just exploiting her natural gift—but she worked and studied every day to improve and to be able to use this talent with ever greater awareness and fullness.

Romina Daniele is one of those voices that cannot be forgotten. I was shocked the first time I listened to her to the tune of her latest album, the triple Spannung. By reading the biographical notes on her website, which I summarize here, you can easily appreciate the path of passion and sacrifice that Romina dedicated to music, and in particular to the cultivation of her talent: a voice out of the ordinary.

« Born in Naples and living in Milan, Romina Daniele has carried on studies in the history and methodology of art, cinema, photography, aesthetics, and modern singing; since 2000, she has collaborated with ensembles of various kinds (blues, jazz, experimental, contemporary), devoting herself to the study and research of vocal production abilities, and carrying out laboratory activities and teaching. Doctor in History of Arts, graduated Cum Laude in Cinema Studies, supervised by professor Augusto Sainati, with a thesis on the relation between sound, music, and images. She is currently studying Sound Technologies at the Conservatory of Milan with Riccardo Sinigaglia, Alessandro Melchiorre, and Giovanni Cospito; she has attended many workshops and seminars, among which we can mention those of Meredith Monk, Trevor Wishart, David Moss, and Annette Vande Gorne. All the studies carried out in poetry, music, vocalism, theatre, and art have been fundamental for the production of the records. The main elements are sound research and sound composition, both in the field of vocalism and in that of electronic music, as well as the exploration of sound waves in the frequency and time domains. The voice, in its differing, unexpected, and sudden shades, dominates a sign universe in which faraway melodies and ancient calls meet contemporary technologies of composition, paving the way to explore perception territories and their processes. Between construction and dismantling, composition and instinct, Romina Daniele performs the tragedy of consciousness in an open comparison with the listener. To find human awareness (by man on man), or the reasons for its absence. »
Romina Daniele is not just a singer, because she is one of those artists capable of giving to the term "singer" a complete meaning that is multifaceted in a multidimensional universe: the interpretation of the songs, the reading of the sounds, the spelling of the emotions, the investigation of one's entire range of possibilities given by an extraordinary texture, and the deployment of timbre and color in favor of constant experimentation. Listening to her latest work, Spannung, I am reminded of the great voices that I have loved in recent years and that have been able to value their talent as a precious asset, beyond any genre disquisition: Mike Patton, Demetrio Stratos, Free Dominguez, and Romina Falconi, just to name a few.

When I come across such peculiar voices, I just want to know more. And Romina was pleasantly available in telling her story. What did I discover in this chat? All you have to do is start reading to find out! I can only tell you, without ruining the surprise, that I found in Romina Daniele a prepared artist, rich in content, fiercely proud of her roots, refined, and with a passion for study and experimentation. A real surprise for me, in short.

Just one piece of advice before you start reading: turn on the beautiful music of Spannung in the background—it's the right soundtrack.

To start, Romina, how did you approach the world of music and what studies did you do? How did your journey of investigating the voice begin?

I studied classical guitar as a child; growing up in the nineties, I also switched to electric guitar—my father gave it to me for Christmas, and it was the best gift of my entire life. I wrote most of my songs on the guitar. I started producing music as well as writing poetry very, very early. Even the transition, so to speak, from the traditional instrument to the computer occurred quite early. My first album from 2005 is about concrete nature, for solo voice and electronic composition, and it is the result of experiences gained in those very early years. For me, it has always been very natural to use any tool for the purpose of thinking and creating. And the voice is the first instrument ever.

Sound is nature—and the most original nature—and has speeds that refer directly to the molecular substance of thought and perceptive faculties, and both sound and the brain are facts that escape ordinary theories and science; therefore, music depends entirely and originally on the voice, which is the first human sound produced and residing within the body—the first instrument in terms of originality and nature. Now, since music has, first of all and originally, to do with the human voice—indeed, music derives entirely from the voice—for me, the apprehension for music, making music, concerns the apprehension for man and his meaning (human production) within all levels and intellectual and artisanal degrees, as well as technological creation.

In addition to this, recognizing the structural ordinariness of the socio-system in which we live—from everyday life to even avant-garde professions—is the zero degree by which it is possible to give rise to and disclose a more authentic sense of the voice, as it emblematically comes first of all and initially: it belongs to our body and our consciousness. The voice is, in fact, the fulcrum of human production, since it is the most essential act of every act, even among the essential ones: it is the place where the intellectual faculties, those of the senses, and the body coexist, and there are no other places like it. I talk about all this in the book I'm completing.

You are from Napoli, but you live in Milan: have these two cities influenced your artistic career?

Naturally. I am Neapolitan to the core and I believe that this is evident in all my nuances. On the other hand, in 2005 I won an award dedicated to Demetrio Stratos promoted by a Milanese group and I also moved for this reason. In Naples, however, I had started producing my work even in more remote times, the same one that later paved the way for me to various awards, and I was completely beyond any conception of genre or cultural groups. I have always made music, I have always written and produced for an existential vocation. Then they saw and recognized different qualities in me, ranging from electronic music, to vocal improvisation, from research to contemporary classical, to blues. In Milan I collaborated for years with the Centro Musica Contemporanea, I partially continued my studies, I started various professional experiences and put aside several others.

Who are the artists who inspire you?

Since my university days, when I was in Naples, and even before, there have been great thinkers, artists, and filmmakers in history in whom I have been able to recognize fundamental, authentic sparks. I think that human work is something broader than the path and influences of an era—yet crucial—and I have always searched for sparks of authenticity, and these always catch my attention when I encounter them.

My greatest references are philosophers and filmmakers, such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Gilles Deleuze, Martin Heidegger, and David Lynch... I recognize the truth in certain blues music and this is what gets me—Koko Taylor or Janis Joplin. The greatest composer in modern history is probably Miles Davis, to whom I dedicated a book.

Demetrio Stratos was the star I looked up to for many years; he represents true and pure research, while today there is a category of vocal research, or so-called extended vocality, as a sector of contemporary music, which—as a sector—mostly and ordinarily works for a certain social and territorial class. To this area, I will always prefer Billie Holiday and Odetta Holmes.

Could you tell me something more about your musical tastes?

I love music and the truth of human production, the commitment and apprehension for searching, investigating, andalways opening ourselves to understand in a more essential and authentic way what we ourselves are. And music is a unique field in this sense, like the voice. I decided to start writing a book to give an idea of all this that concerns man in all his faculties, beyond the closed conceptions of discipline and gender. It concerns socio-history, philosophy, science, art, nature, and language, etc., as purer conceptions and apprehensions that are already our own. I love any music in which I recognize a spark that leads back to all this, without category distinctions.

Coming to Spannung, how did this work come about? How did you develop the compositional path in writing the album?

The album is composed of three fundamental groups of songs, which do not correspond schematically to the three discs, but whose structure is organized across different moments of the total duration. The first group, also in chronological order of composition, includes the pure electronic and electroacoustic pieces; the second includes the Dasein cycle and similar experiences; and in the third, the instrumental tracks, with traditional instruments and musicians.

From 2009 to today, after the publication of my previous album, I studied sound technologies at the Conservatory until around 2012, collaborated in founding RDM Records & Editions (with which I publish), published several of my literary works, and presented Spannung as a preview—according to the phases of its ongoing work—in the most diverse contexts, from the Turin Book Fair to the Hoxton Festival in London. Since 2013, I have mainly toured the Milan area, offering a tribute to rhythm 'n' blues. All this is an integral part of Spannung.

What projects are you working on?

I am continuing the writing of the book Voce Sola, an essay on vocal speech, which will be published later. Spannung and this book had to be published at the same time, since together they are one with the work of recent years. However, I preferred to leave the music with nothing but the music, and the album, despite having a voluminous booklet, mentions in just a few lines issues that the book addresses in chapters and chapters. Naturally, the book, which like the album is crucial for me, will allow insights and immersions not possible otherwise.

If you don't mind, I'd like to go a little deeper now... What is your biggest fear?

To forget.

The dream to realize before dying?

My dreams are one thing with my work. I just need it to be public and shared. Another dream of mine is to have heirs.

Which song by someone else would you have liked to write?

There are certainly songs that I love singing the most and that I am sure represent great parts of me, two examples are Cry Baby by Janis Joplin, and Sycamore Trees by Badalamenti and Lynch.

The city to live in forever?

Where to live forever... I really don't know. Definitely Naples.

Sex, drugs or rock'n'roll?

Of all that commodifies the world in this latest era into the nothingness of nothingness like never before, there are several things. Two quite huge ones come to my mind, and they actually constitute aspects of the same essence. First, reading the great works of essential and true thinkers and artists with inadequate vocabularies and conceptions of thought, passing them off either as negatives or as catalog repertoire; this is true in study circles which call themselves intellectual and avant-garde (at least in the social theatre). On the other hand, especially in our Italy, rock 'n' roll is generally understood as another mask of transgression, and some young people of all ages still get confused.

Drinking is good, and if you have the strength to perform concerts explosive with emotions, this is a gift of nature. But all this is because love and truth are the most important things that exist in the world, like our thoughts, the strength to search for what is missing as authenticity in the world, our lucidity, and our blood; and there are equally precious things called intimacy and the singularity of the person. And this is what makes everything great throughout the history of every place in the world.

If you didn't sing, how would you express yourself?

As I told you before, there are no sounds comparable to the voice. However, sound—for which technologies have opened previously unseen doors—constitutes a great and incomparable vehicle. On the other hand, I spend hours and hours writing.

The sin you are most willing to give in to?

Worldly distraction.

What would you like your fans to say about you?

I would like them to listen to my music with all the strength in their hearts.

The article has been translated into English and this is the link for the original Italian version.

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