Interview with Giacomo Fargion for the album ‘A week in the life of Dr Blagovo‘
Giacomo Fargion is a music producer and electronic music composer born and based in London (UK). He also has a classical background having studied at the Junior Guildhall playing classical guitar. Within the last few years Giacomo has been involved in a variety of projects: he wrote the music for the Southwark Bridge as part of the Illuminated River project; ‘Vive La Phrance‘, a theatre piece written by Andrea Spreafico, Bergen, Norway; music for a short educational film on teenage mental health by Jon Akass, Media Citizens, London; and mixing and mastering music for ‘52 Portraits’ by Matteo Fargion, Jonathan Burrows and Hugo Glendinning, a Sadlers Wells Theatre production. He also contributed music for the ‘Beasts of London’ exhibition at the Museum of London; ‘Tunnel of Light’ installation at Waddesdon Manor House; and Musicity culture mile festival in London. He is currently studying Electronic Music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Is new album A week in the life of Dr Blagovo was release on Kohlenstoff Record on September 9.
KR: The first time I heard this album I was mesmerized by the special sound of it. I didn’t understand what that strange, pleasant sound was that tied all the pieces together on this album. It was only while reading your album note that I learned that for this one, you worked with an old steel guitar with rusty strings, which you detuned and improvised on. Can you tell us a bit about this recording process with this guitar?
GF: I suppose the recording process and the compositions were quite linked. I set out looking for ‘non guitary’ material (for lack of a better word). So, finding material where my fingers wouldn’t normally go to. For example, with ‘Monday’ I found myself playing all the harmonics on the low E string on each fret. With ‘Wednesday’ I tuned all the strings to a C and started strumming, routing it through various Eurorack modules. Through the improvisations I found these simple images/riffs that I then zoomed in on. When processing and editing the recordings in a daw at a later stage, it was important for me to not take the recordings too far from its source.
KR: Who is the moustached character represented on the cover of your album? Does it relate to the title of the album?
GF: It’s a photo that I bought at a flea market in Greece, which has been hanging on my wall at home for years. As the EP is seven tracks, I thought of a title ‘A week in the life of somebody. When looking for a name I came across Anton Chekhov collection of short stories. I enjoyed the story ‘My life’ which features Dr Blagovo. So, the three things came to together to form the name and artwork. I leave it up to the audience to engage with Chekhov’s arguments played out in this musical context
KR: How would you describe the “unusual/experimental” music scene in London nowadays?
GF: My favourite venue at the moment is Cafe Oto. It’s extremely diverse ranging from anything electronic to more classical/Jazz. But it’s also not a typical night club setting which is nice.
KR: You seem to be very active as an artist and composer; What are you working on now and what’s next for you in the future?
GF: At the moment I’m just starting an exploration on miniatures with a focus on the rate of change within them, which I thought was an unusual format for electronic music. I’m not really sure how this project will end up however, I’m discovering new things all the time with this workflow. Unintentionally the tracks I’ve produced so far can be played back in any order which I think is interesting, a kind of Moment form approach I suppose. I’ve also been pursuing a beginning, middle and end in a miniature format (1 minute). This has been very challenging as you can imagine! But fun…
Giacomo Fargion’s website:
https://www.giacomofargion.com/
KOHLENSTOFF 