Oh God… Elio e le Storie Tese complete collection. I think it’s the one you could get in the newsstand distribution, right? That’s a band I never appreciated, even thou I know many friends of mine that, like you (it seems) love them. What does a fan of Ulver finds interesting into them?

I loved Elio e le Storie Tese for real until the ‘Eat The Phikis’ album now they became pathetic; my sister gave me an original copy in tape of this album, as a gift returning from a school trip and my life was changed forever. I was so young.
Yes is the edition you said, it comes, volume by volume, with an historical sport newspaper.
A fan of Ulver? I really don’t know, I am an omnivore collector and I suggest to ALL, to take a listen to the first three album, at least.

Yes, I see Ulver and Vanessa Van Basten, or many that (I guess, as I’m not an expert in the field) have a metal background but moved to electronic and experimentation… So you look omnivorous but it seems you pretty like ‘dark’ things, isn’t? Is then any genre you really cannot listen to?

Ulver and Vanessa Van Basten got one thing in common that I simply love: they do what they want.
Omnivorous yes, but is all about my mood. I take care of it searching, listening and buying music simply following how I feel, but is very hard to chase it, and now I’m running out of space. A predictable result, but is my only real passion and I’ll never put limits to something that makes me feel good.
I can’t stand nowadays commercial music, reggae, trap (I can’t stand that they consider it an evolution of rap), all music that is passed off for extreme metal like Myrkur, Deafheaven… and powerviolence, except for the first wave that created this “genre”.
Those last years I’m listening more noise, too. It was a great obstacle for me a lot of years ago but now I love listening to Sutcliffe Jügend, Merzbow, Genocide Organ…

I also see quite a lot of really underground Italian music, label as Under My Bed or the good old Old Bicycle, and I know that with your webzine you still give space to such stuff. Which are your favourite in this area?

You’re wrong if you refer to The New Noise, but… no problem! With the act of writing I was forgetting how beauty is the act of listening and enjoying music, so I stopped all, after years.
I love the underground, cause is where all is started, thanks to tons of mixed dubbed tape with some friends.
Now I love tape, especially if they are handmade like the one from UMB, or the last album by Viscera/// made by Toten Schwan Records.
If you refer to my tapes in general, my fav items are the last album by Marta De Pascalis, entitled “ANZAR”; one gift from a friend, the original master tape of the album of his band, Will’o’Wisp; and the promo tape of the first ep by Frostmoon Eclipse. I don’t have preferences, but I prefer tapes with exclusive music, though sometimes I hate when bands and label decide to leave scatter bonus songs everywhere.

Oh! So you gave up writing about music? I didn’t know it. Sorry but… it’s interesting. Can you explain more? Don’t you miss it? I did the same years ago, as somehow I started to find nearly pointless to provide my opinion on other people records…

As I said you before, for me, it was becoming the worst way to enjoy music: all about be concentrated on technical and roundabout useless expressions and things like that. Nowadays I follow only few webzines… but not so frequently as years ago. I prefer to use my instinct, listening some seconds and go straight to the payment!

Cool! I think it’s a good approach, I somehow feel the same sometimes, but more often, before buying, I keep listening and listening until I totally fall in love with something, or I get bored. But you say that you keep following some webzine: which are the worthy ones now for you? The survivors?

The New Noise, but so rarely.
I started to be more musically open-minded about electronic music thanks to the reviews by Fabrizio Garau, but now I walk with my own feet hahah!
If for webzines you intend a virtual place where you can find infos and good suggestions about music, I think there are too shitty webzines, with serious lack of contents, tons of grammatical errors.
…what about your requirements for a great webzine? You search for them only to have a great number of sites that speak about your music or you consider the quality instead of quantity?

I think I care for the quality. I mean: publishing music nowadays is a sort of nearly masochistic activity, you do it for some hidden personal purpose usually. One of the rewards, for me, has always been to get feedback on what I do, that’s why I still publish, in the meaning of ‘making it public’. For instance, I even keep sending promo (digital or not) records, from to time to time, to now retired journalist, jut to know what do they think of my music. I do believe in reading and discussing on music, as we’re doing right now here, in this strange bilateral interview!

To get back to the pictures you sent me, I see a Zu album… they’re now one of the most known (abroad) Italian band, and I recently bought the album they did with Current 93 (featuring also our hidden talent Andrea Serrapiglio at cello and Stefano Pilia). I found it surprisingly beautiful. Have you listened to it? I think it’s something special, both for the lineup and the musical result.

If there’s no empathy there’s no pure exchange, and everything end in itself, becoming a mere exercise of style (but… what style? this is the dark side of the web!).

Anyway the picture you see is the vinyl of “Carboniferous”. In Bologna, at Krakatoa Fest, Massimo Pupillo told me that there will be another album with the original line-up and a new press of “Carboniferous”. ZU is not simply the best italian band – both live than studio – but is like a heritage that must be loved, because of the pure energy that instill, is the eighth wonder of the world. They are perfect, every step they made is pure perfection in experiments.

I listened to the collaboration with Current 93 on Bandcamp, maybe one day I’ll buy it, I love the voice of David Tibet, he tells his stories with his voice so deep and unique.

Yes, I do love Tibet’s voice and interpretations.
So here’s my last question… on the bottom left of a pic I see the (for me) great Pioneer CD-J, a stuff that in the ’00 has been heavily used not only by DJs but by several musicians like Fennezs or, in Italy, Claudio Rocchetti. I do have the same in my flat, and I still love it, even thou I nearly never used its ‘DJing features’. Why do you have it and why do you use it for ‘common listening purposes’?

I bought this CD-player ’cause it was the best with a great quality/price ratio, and a friend of mine suggest me this one because read all kind of CDs without problems (for vinyls I use the Project). I’m not a sick audiophile.
Paraphrasing a simple and beautiful message of the defunct label Frohike Records: I am a conscious listener, not just a fucking MP3 collector.

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DAVIDE MONTORO IS A SIMPLE MUSIC COLLECTOR. NOTHING MORE, NOTHING LESS. HE DEEPLY LOVES UNDERGROUND AND EXTREME MUSIC.

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