©2005 Stefania Carezzoli (English language)
Stefania: How was born inside you the love for the music?
Psicodreamics: Curiously when I was a child I didn't like music. I only listened original soundtracks of some of my favourite films. Reasons? I think the kind of music produced then didn't arrive to my soul and possibly the main reason is that electronic music was conspicuous by one's absence. Starting from listening tracks like "Moments in Love" by The Art of Noise or "The Never Ending Story" by Limahl I started to interest in the new world of music and sound generated by synthesizers.
Stefania: How and when did you decide to play music?
Psicodreamics: From the first time I started to show interest in music I humed the melodies with my mouth and carry out percussions with my hands as a body drummer. In 1986 I purchased a cassette of Constance Demby called "Novus Magnificat" that make me feel in heaven. Then I noticed the possibilities of synthesized music and slowly, the idea of make my own sound universe grew in my mind. In the 80 decade to acquire a electronic keyboard economically was impossible for me until 1990 when I had to find a job to purchase my first synthesizer, a Yamaha PSS-580 MusicStation, a complete electronic keyboard with baby keys which I composed my first album The Unknown Frontier.
Stefania: Have you others jobs or activities in your life?
Psicodreamics: I'm a Computer Science teacher and in my free time I like listening music, going to the movies, sports in general and drawing and painting.
Stefania: Which music and artists do you prefer?
Psicodreamics: I like electronic music in general but exactly the music that make me feel into another world, in another place beyond space and time or awake feelings lost inside our souls. From ambient musicians like Vidna Obmana and Steve Roach to worldwide recognized projects like Enigma. Definitively I like those musicians that compose music to take us on an strange trip towards new universes reaching hidden emotions into our hearts.
Stefania: Which musicians or/and music you find your inspiration to?
Psicodreamics: I 'd like to aswer you my music find their inspiration in any artist or music style definite but I don't have a concrete style of music as other musicians. In my latest albums you can find mixed styles from ambient to progressive, from tribal to symphonic, etc. I think the music is like a voyage with many paths waiting to be explored, and an artist have the chance of going beyond of a concrete style of making music. Nevertheless I had to say when I was a beginner musician I tried to find my inspiration to leading musicians of new age like Constance Demby, Suzanne Ciani, Richard Burmer and many others.
Stefania: which instruments do you prefer and which use?
Psicodreamics: Nowadays I only arrange midi keyboards. This let me a wide flexibility playing a lot of instruments like pianos, strings, pads etc. If you listen some of my albums you can guess what instruments I usually play. As an ambient/new age composer I like playing piano and choral voices. Piano inspires me provocative and deep feelings to paint my music with tenderness. I think pianos are the best instrument for playing melodies. Nevertheless an instrument like piano need to be accompanied with a haunting and celestial one like Choral voices.
Stefania: is your music to inspirate the title to the album and tracks or before you think the “story” to play?
Psicodreamics: Both cases have happened to me: I say, In my last album Azhdark Passion I though the title and the story before the music. This is a conceptual work. Nevertheless the music of other albums like The Garden or The Unknown Frontier inspirate the title and tracks of the albums. As I said, I don’t choose one way to develop my music or titles, I like to discover the multiple ways my mind show me.
Stefania: Inside you there is a lot of spirituality… or i mistake?
Psicodreamics: I have the exact measure of spiritually that makes my music not to be bored, I think. Of course that ambient / new age musician should be more spiritual than a rock one but in my case I should speak more about emotion than about spirituality. Although many tracks of my albums have a lot of spiritual feelings, my music is basically full of emotions.
Stefania: how was born the name of psicodreamics?
Psicodreamics: My artist name Psicodreamics was invented fourteen years ago and is a complex word that become from three words: Psycho – Dream – Amics. The first two words are known but the last one “amics” means in my local language friends. Something like “Friends of the Psycho Dreams”.
Stefania: The covers of your cd's are full of colours and rich of meaning. How and when do you decide to obtain the final result?
Psicodreamics: As you know, I like to paint pictures about fantasy and mystery. In addiction all my music are inspired on imaginary landscapes and mythological characters. Then I can use these paintings as covers of my albums. The final result of my drawings depends of the synopsis of the album and what I want to transmit to the listeners. An example: When I had to choose a cover for TUF, I imagined a girl alone in a quiet place like sea walking to the horizon. Then I draw a simple girl in simple seashore without any kind of difficulty. I wanted to transmit this idea without much detail on the drawing. You can download my cover art and paintings from my official site.
Stefania: "The Unknown Frontier", your first cd, is very different from your other albums. What did you mean for you?
Psicodreamics: My first (official) album was composed in 1993 using a FM synthesizer Yamaha PSS-580 during days that I usually listened earlier albums of ambient artists like Steve Roach or Robert Rich. I enjoyed the dark electronic landscapes they performed in their albums. I though to follow their path adding my personal touch so I think this album were influenced by these two masters of ambient music. Inspired on a trip to the world of resurrection, souls and dead, I tried to bring the listeners to the frontier that separates the life and the death during 44 minutes that the CD goes for on.
Stefania: The tracks are dark, slow, an electronic wears of ambient... a very good work. Why this choose of sounds?
Psicodreamics: I played a Yamaha FM synthesizer where the sounds I performed were generated using Modulated Frequency. The instruments I played sounded dark and desolate and it gave me the opportunity of create a dark-ambient album. So I performed dark atmospheres and deep floating sounds that transport us to the beyond, imagining strange passages and desolated places never seen. With quiet and relaxed frequency modulated chords, the notes get longer in the time, filling the space of silence. This is TUF, simple, easy, quiet, without special technical adornments but direct to the deep down of our senses.
Stefania: "Mythomusic" is a sweeter album but also a bit dramatic. Did which mythology inspire you to?
Psicodreamics: Mythomusic was a collection of music inspired on legends and mythology, an album to discover mythology through the music. During ages mythology has had both sweet and dramatic tales and legends. Then my music reflects this, sweet feelings truncated with dramatic images. You can listen sweet tracks like “Let me touch your face” or
Stefania: Here there is a bonus track, "Azhdark Passion"... a little part of your future cd?
Psicodreamics: Yes, this theme was composed in 1997 as a collection of mixed tracks as a electronic symphony. I noticed the potential of each part as a single track. I though about making a hole album developing these tracks.
Stefania: "Let Me Touch Your Face" is then played again in the cd "Eternal Angel", with the title "Cherubin Dance", a very nice composition for two different moments with any different sounds but same melody. Why this?
Psicodreamics: Ha ha, you has been the first person that noticed this. Congratulations, you has a “big ear”. Well, the track included on Mythomusic titled “Let me touch your face”, as you know, has two moments or parts: the first more majestic and the second (central) more sweet. I liked the finished track but I noticed the hardware I arranged were insufficient to reach the magnificent feeling I looked for. A suitable theme for my burial, he he.
Stefania: In "The Garden" you say about of a garden, a limbo, a transilvanic "something"... another great album, but what do you want to tell listener?
Psicodreamics: The real title of this album is “The Garden of God and Evil”. It is not a conceptual work, it’s a collection of themes where the artist carries out a personal approach to the concepts of good and evil within the tracks of this collection of emotional pretty music. This work goes beyond new age and ambient, we also could say it is even a symphonic album.
Stefania: Here you begin to use the voices to create more suggestive atmospheres. What do you like to communicate in these messages?
Psicodreamics: Sampled voices mixed with music gave me a first approaching to future albums like Eternal Angel or Azhdark Passion. When I used this voices I didn’t want to communicate something special to the listener but I only looked for the sensuality of female voices or the spirituality of Gregorian Chants to enrich and power my music.
Stefania: When you use Gregorian Chants, you build perfect moments of Sacred, Light and Darkness together. What does these Chants mean for you?
Psicodreamics: Gregorian Chants are the perfect ingredient to dress my music. You can create a track with a different mood using sampled voices adequately as you noticed. “The Garden” includes a lot of Gregorian Chants as you can listen on a track entitled “Loneliness and Sadness Waltz” where female chants hit profoundly in the feelings and emotions of the listeners. You can feel loneliness and sadness at the same time!
Stefania: "Lycanthrope 2000" is an explosion of speed EM... how was this idea born?
Psicodreamics: The idea of making a commercial Trance track and include it in a new age-ambient album was a risked matter. Nevertheless I want to end my album with an original and shocking track as colophon. I’d want to say the listener: “wake up”.
Stefania: The year after you composed "Lycanthrope 2001", why this return?
Psicodreamics: It was new and enhanced version of Lycanthrope 2000. I suppose that I’d want to shock again the listener, he he.
Stefania: Another story with "Eternal Angel", which inspiration this time?
Psicodreamics: I take my inspiration from Heaven and Hell, in an idyllic trip through eleven imaginary passages, visited by a celestial angel in search of answers for his eternal immortality. This is a conceptual work where I try to explain the adventures and feelings about an angel starting a voyage from Heave, passing through Hell. The angel leaves his celestial realm to look for answers about his immortality, descending to Hell, where he dances frantically with demons and souls of the damned. In the reflection of his eyes are his angelic origins, and he escapes from the dark depths with the angel of death, Azrael, following him into the world of the souls where they find the soul of a dog called Dana. Far away from his home, loneliness and yearning give rise to a slow agony inside him that makes him drift away, landing near death in the shores of hell , where he is rescued by a graceful cherubim that carries him to Eden. While he recovers his strength, he is seduced by a woman dressed as the devil. After passing this test, he receives an immortal gift that returns him, reborn, to his original realm.
Stefania: What is Azrael for you?
Psicodreamics: I know Azrael as the Angel of Death but the track “Azrael Tear” was inspired about a demon that helps the angel to escape from Hell. This angel of death inspires me a creature that are doomed to guide souls of the dead humans for eternity full of sentiments and feelings.
Stefania: The atmospheres in this cd are deeper and rich of meaning in every little part. How much time do you need to have this perfection?
Psicodreamics: As in all my album composed by me, I spend more time after composing a theme arranging a lot of midi parameters of each track sound like volumes, tempo, effects like reverb, chorus, modulation, etc. I try to reach the perfection in my music.
Stefania: Your last work, "Azhdark Passion": to you the word to speak about.
Psicodreamics: This album is based upon a fantasy book entitled “Night’s Master” written by Tanith Lee, a female writer that is considered the queen of fantasy, about the adventures and misdeed of Azhrarn, the prince of demons, who lived in Underearth and came to surface at nightfall to torment the mortals. From this magnificent book I took the idea of making a music work where that fantastic story, that years ago moved him, became real . Azhdark Passion also features Spanish musician Alidan on the 3 rd track called “The Garden of Strange Beings” and Spanish female songwriter and musician Priscilla Hernandez on the closing track "Morning Light". Incredible voice and whistles ready to surprise you. This album was released this year by Margen Records (www.margenmusic.com). The album can be purchased on my official site (www.psicodreamics.com) or directly from Margen Records site.
