Blank. Judging by that name, someone would expect minimalistic nihilism, complete despair pouring over in music. Quite different is this sound of young italian band: progressive, active and positively energetic - as much as genre permits. So, to clear out the misconceptions and to present ideas that drive the project, I turned to TheMaze. This is what he said:

In great Italian tradition, your lyrics seem hopelessly romantic. Do you see them that way as well?

Well, so it seems… of course it's not deliberate, but as I scribble down some poetry to be used for our lyrics, most of the times it ends like that. I suppose it's just what comes out of me naturally. I have nothing against different themes, and I've actually written, and probably will write again about different stuff. But at the present times, it's feelings that really got me going. Can't help it.

Adding to the taste, there's a loss, a past, a decay (always!). Who is she??

Eh… she is my muse. A modern Frankenstein, made of body parts, former lovers, events of the past, the actual love of my life and some cybernetic implants: books I've read, dreams I've had. A little bit of myself, too.

"Cybernetics and music"? 1969?!

Can music creation be explored through algorithms? Are there some mathematical patterns we can find in music? R.C. Zaripov, a Moscow University professor, between '60s and '70s deployed his theories about
algorithmic creation of music. He was a true pioneer in this field, a sort of Alan Turing of music in his way... He wrote down some fascinating articles and books, based on his and his assistants extensive research, and on the sheer power of an URAL II mainframe. His writings really impressed us in many ways and caught our imagination, and we actually feel near to Zaripov's way of seeing music.

Any other author of computer aided music composition that should be noted and why?

There are many books and researches on this fascinating, inspiring subject… from very simple statistic algorithms to extremely complex neural networks and genetic-based artificial intelligence systems. For starters, I suggest having a look at http://www.flexatone.net/algoNet/index.html. You can find
some interesting books on Amazon as well, but some of them are really hard to digest!

Any philosopher, novelist?

Friedrich Nietzsche. Jackson Pollock. Nikola Tesla. William Burroughs. Neal Stephenson. Grant Morrison. Far too many people to mention, I think. Influences can come from anywhere.

To return to the beginning, why Blank?

It was the foundation of our new project, an absolute void. Our previous musical experiences broke down so fast that year, and we were quite pissed about the human factor of an analogue 4-people band... So we buried our guitars and bought a synth and a computer. We were starting from scratch and we didn't now if it would work, but we strongly believed in it and enjoyed the journey, so, here we are, happily ever electro. (continues on next page)