Interview - Birthh
by Marco Cresci
by Marco Cresci
[Marco Cresci] Hi Alice, how are you?
[Birthh] Overheated, but good. You?
[MC] Me too, thanks. Listening to your album, at first I had a few favorite songs, but they’ve changed over time. Right now, for instance, I have Total Black on a loop. Does that happen to you too when you listen to your own songs?
[B] Yes, it’s a wonderful thing when a song grows on you with repeated listens. Total Black is perhaps the one I’ve listened to the most too, since I finished it. I don’t know why, but every so often I feel like putting it on again because it’s the song that makes me feel cool. Generally, once a record is finished, it’s finished. You have to make peace with that and accept that you can’t change anything anymore. Actually, I like this record a lot and I’m happy with how it turned out. Then there are always those couple of details you think could have been done differently. There are days when I listen to it and it moves me, others when I notice flaws, and others still when I don’t even hear those flaws. The relationship with your own songs is always a bit strange, but I don’t think it’s something that happens only to me.
[MC] Right from the cover of Senza Fiato (Carosello), there’s a very physical sensation of heat: you’re in New York, in summer, sweaty, drinking from a bottle. When you think of the word “heat,” what’s the first image that comes to mind?
[B] When I think of heat, a lot of things come to mind. The first is Italy. When I was living in New York, I realized I was trying to reintroduce into my life a kind of warmth I had only ever found here. It’s the same warmth I hear in the orchestral arrangements of Mina’s Se Telefonando, in Ennio Morricone’s strings. There’s a warmth in our culture that I can’t even explain, but that I couldn’t find in New York. I’m glad to be in an issue devoted to heat, because it’s a key word in my artistic path over the last few years. Already on the previous record, I was trying to bring heat into my music. If instead I think of something more instinctive, heat for me is home. I think back to summers at my grandmother’s house in the early 2000s. She lived above a bakery and there was no air conditioning: in summer, you died of the heat. But that’s exactly where I wrote my first song. I was seven or eight and had just learned a few chords on the guitar. Ultimately, my music has always come out of a certain kind of heat.
[MC] This search for heat is also there in the production of the record, would you agree?
[B] Absolutely. The whole sonic effort was built around this idea. We chose instruments like Mellotrons, which have a very warm sound, a valve microphone for the voice precisely because it brings out warmth, classical guitars, or in any case guitars with a slightly dirty, lived-in tonal texture. Visually too, we said to ourselves that the record could be summed up in two words: Sweaty and Y2K. I grew up in the early 2000s and I feel that aesthetic is deeply mine. But the Y2K aesthetic was very surgical. Today, instead, we live in a time of global warming, late capitalism, and sweat. There’s something dirtier, more lived-in that I find very contemporary.
[MC] Senza Fiato is your fourth album but the first sung in Italian; that too helps add warmth to the songs…
[B] Italian carries a natural warmth with it, and so does Italian melody. Even in a track like Canyon, which starts with garage textures and unusual harmonies, at a certain point it opens toward the tradition of Italian song. That’s where the strings come in, where the Mellotrons come in. It’s something I’m always looking for.
[MC] Listening to the record, it almost seems that heat becomes a form of resistance, especially at a historical moment like this one. Is that a reading you share?
[B] Heat can mean many things. It can mean human contact, rediscovering a sense of community, being together. I also like thinking of heat as something necessary but not always comfortable. Being together can be uncomfortable. Building a community can be difficult, just like when you’re hot, out in the sun, sweating. But it’s a necessary discomfort, because that’s precisely where something beautiful comes from. Just as the heat of the sun is indispensable for life.
[MC] In Black Rat you sing: “Se ci fosse l’occasione, brucerei tutto il mondo per diventare il sole, così posso brillare.” It’s a powerful image — where does it come from?
[B] I really don’t know. I always write in freestyle. The words come out of my mouth, and this way of writing has been fundamental for me. If I start thinking too much about what I have to say, I freeze up. For me, the melody always comes first. Maybe I start from a beat or from a chord progression that intrigues me. I let words come out; they may not be the right ones at first, but they say something. Then the song turns over, you work it like clay, until little by little it takes shape. It’s a very liberating process, but also a very frustrating one. Sometimes you stay on the same verse for twenty minutes without finding the right word. But when it arrives, it’s extremely satisfying.
[MC] Listening to the album again, I noticed so many film references, from Black Swan to The Truman Show. Is cinema something that has always been with you?
[B] Very much so. I started playing thanks to Richard Linklater’s film School of Rock. I saw it at the cinema with my dad and, as soon as we came out, I told him: “Dad, I want to be a drummer.” He answered: “Maybe pick the guitar or the piano.”
[MC] So music is part of your family as well?
[B] Yes. In fact, my whole family has always had a very deep relationship with music. My dad sings and plays guitar in an Irish music band. My mum sang in a Gregorian choir as a girl. My maternal grandfather, on the other hand, did karaoke, mostly Neapolitan music. I grew up between family parties where people listened to Roberto Murolo and the concerts my father took me to. Music was always experienced as an emotional language. Then, when I saw School of Rock, I thought: so I can play too, I can be a rock star too!
[MC] Watching it again today, does it still strike you?
[B] Yes, even more so. As an adult, you realize the mastery with which it’s built: in the way the story is told, the way the actors are directed… For me, Richard Linklater really is the director of my life. I’m a huge film enthusiast. One of my favorite things to do is to settle in and watch a film in the evening. And after all, cinema contains music too.
[MC] Are there other films that shaped you?
[B] As a child, I watched Jesus Christ Superstar constantly. I had it on DVD, along with School of Rock: those were my great obsessions.
[MC] Staying with directors, I imagine you will have seen The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer, which is practically devoid of music. What effect did it have on you?
[B] It put me through a lot. I found it a beautiful film, but a very heavy one. The subject is obviously devastating, but the way it’s told is incredible too. I saw it at the cinema and came out really shaken.
[MC] Meanwhile, the tour has started. How is it going?
[B] It’s going really well. I’m happy because, even though we’ve only known each other since the middle of April — I found the musicians through an open call on Instagram — a wonderful human bond formed right away. On stage, we genuinely have fun, and that completely changes the energy you bring to a concert. It’s always like playing among friends.
[MC] What moves you most during a live show?
[B] Right now I’m doing festivals, so I love seeing the people who at first seem distracted, the ones who seem not to care at all. Then, little by little, you see them let themselves be drawn in, and by the end they lose themselves in the concert. It’s a wonderful feeling. Naturally, it’s marvelous when people sing the songs. I’m learning a huge amount from playing live. There are still aspects I want to improve on. But from the feedback we get, it seems to me we’re managing to create a moment of sharing with the people in front of the stage. And that, in my view, is the most important thing about a concert: everyone being present in the same moment, ideally without a phone in their hand.
[MC] After the festivals, will there be a club tour as well?
[B] We’ll set off on an autumn club tour, and there we want to build a much more complete show, with all the production we have in mind: cool lights and, obviously, visuals of a certain kind. We hope a lot of people will come and share it with us.
[MC] Since you started writing in Italian, do you feel your audience has changed?
[B] Definitely. I see different faces and also a more varied audience in terms of age and demographics. My relationship with the queer community has always been visceral, and it makes me very happy to see that this record has reached queer people in Italy even more. Finding those faces in front of the stage moves me enormously. When I make music, it’s as if I were sending up a smoke signal to find people who feel the things I feel. Maybe not every song, but at least one or two that really manage to touch you. When I see that happen, it’s the greatest satisfaction.
[MC] Are there tracks that are working better than others live?
[B] It depends a lot on the context, but certainly Più in alto and Canyon. With Canyon, something wonderful happened at the MI AMI Festival in Milan: people started dancing and moshing. And it was surprising to see how well known Più in alto already was, even before its official release. We were already playing it live and people were singing the chorus. At more intimate concerts, Truman and Bene da sola work very well, but those two are definitely the songs that land hardest.
[MC] In your work, you always pay a great deal of attention to the image. The videos too, while maintaining a DIY approach, always have a very precise aesthetic. How much does the visual component count for you?
[B] For me, it’s fundamental. The tour visuals are still being worked on, so I can’t say too much; the idea is to make them myself. I want them to accompany the music and pick up the aesthetic of the record, using material from the videos as well. There will be more constructed moments and others left to improvisation. The aim is to connect everything to Ableton and create a visual narrative coherent with the universe of Senza Fiato.
[MC] Speaking of heat, now that you’ve mentioned it — the title of the record is warm too, because when it’s very hot you have the sensation of being left breathless. In the end, it seems this theme runs through the whole project.
[B] Yes, it’s true. For me, heat really is one of the themes of my life, and Senza Fiato connects perfectly to this idea. I find in it many things that are part of the record and of the way I’m living this moment.
[MC] Let me ask you for one final recommendation: a film to watch. Maybe one that has something to do with heat…
[B] Hard… do you have one in mind?
[MC] Yes, because it’s one of my favorite films: Wild at Heart by David Lynch.
[B] I’ve never seen it. With Lynch, I sometimes struggle a little. I’m someone who needs films that take me by the hand. I have a fairly short attention span, and I like it when a film manages to keep me involved throughout. That’s why I adore Linklater.
[MC] Let’s close like this, then: recommend a film that, in your view, absolutely has to be seen.
[B] Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a stop-motion film I love deeply. Every time I watch it, I cry. I also have a film about heat for you: Y Tu Mamá También by Alfonso Cuarón. I saw it recently and it struck me enormously. I’d like to watch it again, because I saw it on a computer, which in my opinion is the worst way to watch it. Some films really do deserve a big screen.