Cowboys, Italian radical design and surf rock - welcome to the world of Heroin in Tahiti.
This Roman noise/experimental duo first came to my attention early this year with the release of their debut LP, Death Surf - a soundscape of stormy guitars and crashing waves punctuated by percussion straight out of a spaghetti western. Their sound suggests a grainy recording of a Gidget movie over Alexander Jodorowsky's El Topo. Full of contradiction, it's peaceful with an air of impending danger, equally blissful and threatening.
The artwork shows no band members or live photos, just a deeply unsettling and powerful image of picture-postcard Polynesia with faces distorted into ghostly blurs. Everything appealed to my love of the morbid and surreal, so I decided to delve into the mind of its creators.
Who is Heroin in Tahiti? Where do you come from and how did you get started?
Heroin In Tahiti is Francesco and Valerio. We live in Rome and we used to play in other bands/projects in the local noise/weird/underground scene. Nowadays, Francesco still plays with Opium Child, while Valerio is half of Thetlvmth and the videolabel AAVV. We also do a sort of gathering called Rainforest: we ask bands to play in Rome and to propose a collection of pics, images and ephemera related to their own universe. These pics are collected in a series of 'zines released by our friend Massimiliano Bomba from RawRaw Editions.
Is there a healthy music scene in Rome at the moment then?
It seems so. Last year, our friend Toni Cutrone from No=Fi Recordings released a compilation LP called Borgata Boredom, a sort of manifesto of the so called “Scena di Roma Est” (East Rome scene). A lot of our friends and neighbours do music, and usually it’s the kind of music that we like: noisy stuff, abstract electronics, garagey shit, experimental beats and so on. For example The Away Team/Polysick, Trans Upper Egypt, Grip Casino, Hiroshima Rocks Around, Wolf Anus, Bobsleigh Baby, System Hardware Abnormal. Lots of different sounds, but the attitude is more or less the same. They’re among our best friends, and we’re among their biggest fans.
What was the idea behind the name 'Heroin in Tahiti'?
You know, it’s just a stupid name. We had this track called Death Surf, and basically Heroin in Tahiti is in the same vein. It also has a sort of Mondo-Movie flavour, the kind of 'obscure things happen in a heavenly place' vibe. Actually, we’ve never been to Tahiti.
How is your music influenced by your city?
Hard to say. You know, Rome is a very dirty, fucked up and decayed city. There’s ruins (both ancient and modern) everywhere, but if this affects our music is up to the listener. Also, Rome has an impressive history in music and weird sounds – think of Morricone, Nuova Consonanza, Le Stelle di Mario Schifano, the whole library music/soundtrack thing. And of course you have cinema, Pasolini and so on.
Where does the interest in the surf rock sound come from?
You can’t resist a twangy guitar.
How does your interest in Italian radical design fit into your music, if at all?
Superstudio, Archizoom, Ettore Sottsass, Mendini and the whole radical architecture and design of the 60s/70s was a very interesting product of a specific era, when Italy was filled with suchexperiments. Same years when Piero Piccioni wrote his proto-industrial/techno score for Francesco Rosi’s The Mattei Affair, or Italian TV broadcast disturbing hallucinatory programmes such as Il Segno del Comando. Of course, back then we weren’t even born and we actually grew up in a totally different era, but somehow those elements are part of our cultural background. It’s not about memories, it’s just living in a place where you can still face those signs everyday.
If Death Surf was a soundtrack, who would be directing the movie and who'd play the main character?
It would be a Luigi Bazzoni movie with Florinda Bolkan as the main character. Exactly like the marvellous Le Orme (Footprints on the Moon).
Heroin In Tahiti - Death Surf by boringmachines
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