This is a reprint from the Devil Doll mailing list. Thought I'd share.

I must admit that I can't seem to remember anyone posting this Franceso
Carta interview from Aluqah Magazine on the list in the translated form....
or maybe Iluszja from Poland only translated it to me, because I asked for
it. And I couldn't find it on any of the Devil Doll fansites, so maybe I was
the only lucky one to get this interview translated into english. And
obviously, I didn't post it before, so here it is...

Thanx to Iluszja for translating it.....!

- Peter

-------------------------------------




FRANCESCO CARTA INTERVIEW





This band doesn't need further introductions, as I

suppose - within certain circles its status is simply cult.

Francesco Carta (the group's pianist and the second person,

after Mr. Doctor, responsible for the music of Devil Doll)

agreed to grant a special interview for the polish readers. I

would like to thank Rosanna Pistolato from Hurdy Gurdy for the

priceless help with this interview.



ALUQAH: What had You been doing before joining Devil Doll? When

did You start to be interested in music?



FRANCESCO CARTA: Before I joined Devil Doll I had played with

various bands, mainly jazz ones. At the age of eighteen I

started studying literature and I graduated in classic piano and

composition at the Conservatory in Padova. Lately, I have been

studying jazz music at the University of Trento.

I was always fascinated with music and in spite of miserable

funds I managed to copy thousands of recordings to tapes. I

gained a vast knowledge on various different music genres.



ALUQAH: What was the beginning of Devil Doll like?



FRANCESCO CARTA: I had played with a jazz trio with Rob Dani

before he joined Devil Doll, so, when Edoardo Beato left the

band, I was auditioned.

For a couple of weeks Mr. Doctor hesitated whether to choose me

or another musician who was working with an avantgarde composer

Salvatore Sciarrino, but at last Mr. Doctor decided on me

because I was much more elastic as to free tempos and partly

improvised structures.

However, it was not easy, because He is conspicuous by pretty

near maniacal concern for every tiniest detail in search of the

trance symbiosis between His voice and my piano.



As you probably know, each performance of the piano and vocal is

being recorded LIVE AND AT THE FIRST TAKE, so no occassional

lack of that symbiosis can be further corrected.

The recordings and concerts are UNIQUE events and I needed time

to enter the complex and expression filled world of THE MAN. At

the beginning I thought He is simply insane, now I know that He

is posessed, but He has that unique gift that allows Him to

throw The Rational Intelligence out from Himself and be flooded

by the deeper settled part of His Mind, if you understand what

I mean.



The problem with Art is that too much Intelligence, in the

common meaning of this word, is used, and the Creation becomes

simply a Construction.



ALUQAH: Within the whole time of the band's existence there were

some changes among members. Why? How are the new musicians

chosen?



FRANCESCO CARTA: Well, Jurij Toni was the main responsible for

searching for musicians and introducing them to Mr Doctor, who

was choosing the Devil Doll members Himself.

As to the changes of members, they were always caused by

misunderstandings with Jurij, who has a difficult character,

never because of Mr. Doctor.

His very strong, aristocratic, kind of unearthly personality

prevents any close relations or conflicts.



ALUQAH: How did You happen to meet Mr. Doctor? What were the

circumstances in which you joined the band like?



FRANCESCO CARTA: I have already answered this question but I

might add that I had heard earlier already Rob Dani talking much

about misterious Mr. Doctor.

I got very intrigued by his persona and I wanted to meet him.

So I took advantage of the opportunity during the audition.

At first I joined Devil Doll temporarily, because Edoardo Beato

could not play the piano and the keyboards at the same time,

during the live performances.

So I was asked to replace him at the piano on the stage.

As I have already said, when Edoardo left, I tried my best to

join the band for good.



ALUQAH: What are you doing apart from playing with Devil Doll?

Are there any other projects that you or the other musicians

participate in?



FRANCESCO CARTA: All the Devil Doll members have recorded albums

outside the band.

Sasha Olenjuk has recorded many soundtracks (I have got his

album to the movie HALGATO - it is really good) and he has

composed a lot of music in the Gipsy climates, that are close to

his Ukrainian roots.

Bor Zuljan is a guitar legend in Slovenia and has done many

recordings in the metal - rock style.

The accordionist, Drago Ivanusa, is the composer of music for

The National Theatre performances (The Drama Theatre in

Ljubliana) and he has created many albums.

I could continue to enumerate like that...



The charm of working with Devil Doll is that we all are totally

different people; we speak totally different languages, we

always have totally different music taste and cultural

background.

There are no two Devil Doll members that would have anything in

common, apart from the fact that all the persons are incredibly

talented musicians.

We find a thread of understanding only through Mr. Doctor's

visions.

Our past gives us a chance to contribute something unique to Mr.

Doctor's works and to widen the spectrum of colours expressed by

music.



ALUQAH: What does your collaboration with Mr. Doctor look like?

Is he the only composer in the group? What is your influence on

the Devil Doll music?



FRANCESCO CARTA: I am the only musician with whom He works

BEFORE the pre-production of an album.

That means that from time to time I present a fragment of music

that I have composed and sometimes it is included in the

composition.



My contribution to the orchestration and arrangement is much

bigger and, apart from the contribution of Sasha Olenjuk, I do

all the work with Mr. Doctor.

On "Dies Irae", for example, I contributed to the creation of

the cello and piano parts, just before the "as the shaman" and

the instrumental part which ends with a guitar solo, just before

the "among the trees" section.



ALUQAH: You admire classical music masters, but are there any

performers beyond that field that interest you?



FRANCESCO CARTA: My interests are closely connected with

classical and jazz music now.

However, when I was travelling with Mr. Doctor recently, He put

playing a couple of very odd and revealing pieces, to which I

paid my attention.

One of them, entitled FARMER IN THE CITY, came from the Scott

Walker album: TILT, the other one, truly surprising by its mad

structure, entitled LULLABY, is to be found only in the Japanese

edition of PUNISHING KISS by Ute Lemper.



ALUQAH: Do you agree with classifying Devil Doll as

a "progressive - rock" group? How would you describe your music?



FRANCESCO CARTA: Frankly speaking, I cannot see anything in

common between Devil Doll and the old and new Italian bands

belonging to the progressive rock stream.

It seems to me that the image of music that Mr Doctor has is

closer to the theatrical universum of the SEVEN DEADLY SINS by

Kurt Weill.

The only so-called progressive artists that could have something

in common with Devil Doll are, in my opinion, Peter Hammill from

England (his early works) and J.A. Caesar from Japan.



ALUQAH: One of the most fascinating things in Devil Doll are the

lyrics, full of twisted metaphors, ambiguous meanings. Who is

the literary inspiration for Mr. Doctor?



FRANCESCO CARTA: Great question. I fully agree with you and I am

surprised that so few people realize how highly poetic Mr.

Doctor's lyrics are. Absolutely amazing.

For example this verse in "Dies Irae": the character loves his
girlfriend so strongly, and he sees such a pure heart in her, that he
decides to kill her, being sure, that if God does exist, she will
certainly be

given the Eternal Life.

A new, twisted, variation of the Eros -

Thanatos theme, with the assassin's sensational sentence: "And

the virgin blade kisses, freeing, your white throat". Even Rilke

would be proud of such sentence. A gem of poetic genius... And

there are many of them...

In the previous recordings there were

no literary inspirations, but on "Dies Irae" - the album was

supposed to be an autoanalysis of Mr. Doctor and all the sources

that were an inspiration for Him throughout the years -there are

some quotations from the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Bronte

and Emily Dickinson. They meant a lot to The MAN and he wanted

to use a couple of their words.



ALUQAH: Devil Doll has given a couple of live performances. What

did they look like? Did any of them stuck in Your mind

especially? Did any of them took place outside Slovenia or

Italy? Are You planning any concerts in the future?



FRANCESCO CARTA: Live performances are, as you probably expect,

VERY theatrical. Scenography (some of its elements you can see

on the special edition of Dies Irae for Fan Club members) is

essential; during a few concerts we were projecting both silent

movies directed by Mr. Doctor on the background. Since the year

1992 Devil Doll has given only nine concerts, and its doubtful

if we would be able to afford it ever again. The music scene in

Slovenia and Italy is in a state of deep economic crisis and the

upkeep is very expensive. This is the reason why I wanted so

much, and insisted on playing a couple of concerts with a

smaller ensemble called the Devil Doll Chamber Orchestra, but Mr.

Doctor seems not to agree on this... He wants all the Concerts

to be Unforgettable Events and His demands are hard to be

realized in a world which prefers Money to Music.



ALUQAH: Do you share the interest towards old movies with Mr.

Doctor?



FRANCESCO CARTA: Of course! Mr. Doctor's knowledge is very vast:

after all, he was lecturing a course about cinema at the

Slovenian Cinematheque, which people still recall as "epochal".

During the past five/six years I studied many movies suggested

by Mr. Doctor and discovered loads of unknown diamonds, which

are very inspiring, also, from strictly music point of view! My

interest towards movies led me to the collaboration with Mr.

Doctor on a book on Bernard Herrmann, entitled GLASBA ZA

OCI, "Music For The Eyes", which, as I was lately told, will be

soon re-issued by the Slovenian Cinematheque.



ALUQAH: Mr. Doctor created two silent movies: THE SACRILEGE OF

FATAL ARMS and THE DAY OF WRATH. Are they an inspiration to

Devil Doll's music or is it the music to evoke the images?



FRANCESCO CARTA: Certainly there must exist some correlation

between the images and the music, and I don't know for sure

which generated which, but I believe that mainly the music and

the lyrics created the visual part. My personal opinion is that

Mr. Doctor considers the movies His personal, visible

explanation of suggestions evoked by the music and the lyrics.

Everyone shutting their eyes and purifying their minds, could

and should let Mr. Doctor's music set the Angels and the Demons

free, complete the suggestions according to their own unique

sensitivity. I think that this is what was Mr. Doctor's aim.



ALUQAH: Is the Devil Doll Chamber Orchestra something separate

from Devil Doll?

Was it created only to record the soundtrack to THE FALL OF THE

HOUSE OF USHER by Jean Epstein? Are you going to release this

material? Who, apart from Mr. Doctor and you, forms the Devil

Doll Chamber Orchestra?



FRANCESCO CARTA: The Devil Doll Chamber Orchestra was originally

formed to perform the soundtrack composed by Mr. Doctor for the

silent work of Epstein. When the problems with the Slovenian

Cinematheque (which did not clarify the issue of rights for the

projected releasing of the video tape and a few live

performances) occurred, Mr. Doctor felt deeply offended. I still

hope that this recording will soon be published, together with

the MURDEROUS SUITES album. The Devil Doll Chamber Orchestra

consists of a string quartet, piano, percussive instruments and

organ. I guess it is more violent than Devil Doll and more

elastic as a live playing unit. I extremely like everything that

we have done as the Devil Doll Chamber Orchestra. It was designed as

a separate whole, connected with the main crew of Devil Doll

with the orchestra and electric instruments.



ALUQAH: What do the Devil Doll members do nowadays?



FRANCESCO CARTA: I will speak about myself. Nowadays, I am

recording a series of long pieces based on Emily Dickinson's

poems (whose work I got to know while recording "Dies Irae"

album), with the Devil Doll Chamber Orchestra and Mr. Doctor's

incredible vocal achievements. They make me have goosebumps.



ALUQAH: Are you planning to release the unpublished Devil Doll

material?



FRANCESCO CARTA: I hope and believe, and I want very

much that Mr. Doctor would eventually agree on releasing this

material. Otherwise, it would be a huge loss for us all, admiring

and believing in the exceptionality of His genius. Someone

recently compared the self-imposed "exile" of Mr. Doctor to

Rimbaud's refusal to publish something he had written when being

a bit over twenty years old... I hope and very much want to

believe that it will not be like that in this case...



ALUQAH: When can we expect a new work of Devil Doll? Are you

working on something now?



FRANCESCO CARTA: Mr. Doctor keeps composing and His Visions are

much more extreme now than ever before.

Even more deep and bitter, even more unexpected... I have always

felt that Devil Doll's recordings are interpreted incorrectly

and totally misunderstood. I think that realizing the greatness

of THE MAN will take a couple of years still, and this hurts me.

I cannot say if this is the main reason for Mr.

Doctor's "isolation" and his visible lack of interest to release

such works! However, at the end I can say that I am optimistic

about the near future and I believe that the new year will bring

a couple of surprises for the Devil Doll fans.



Margot



(C) Aluqah Magazine '2001

More reviews soon. I have a couple already written.