Hexperos

Chain D.L.K.: Alessandra, you previously were in Gothica. What are your dearest memories of that period and what made you end that experience?
Hexperos: I have a lot of memories of the years in Gothica, maybe the dearest ones are when we signed our first contract, when we recorded in a real studio for the first time, our live show and some illuminating moments when words and music came to our minds as if under dictation. That experience ended because our symbiosis as musicians and as a couple too ended . We need to live different experiences of music and life.

Chain D.L.K.: Both of you have a rich musical background, jazz and classical music experiences, other musical projects, etc. How much of these experiences helped you towards the creation of Hexperos’ music and how much have these experiences been a sort of “creative rush”?
Hexperos: All these experiences helped. For us it is important to play and to listen to various kinds of music, we enjoy it and get a lot of ideas. Working in the world of classical music is enriching but sometimes it can be frustrating because in this world there are a lot of rules. For this reason, I love writing music with Francesco because he has a lively imagination free from rules.

Chain D.L.K.: You took your name from a star which was also Aphrodite’s favorite one. Can you tell something more about this choice and about the themes you like to deal with?
Hexperos: The name Hexperos comes from Hesperides and Hesperos. Francesco and I are tied up with this star because of a personal episode. Every day we met under Hesperos, we saw it rise. I talk a bit about this story in the end of our song entitled Hesperos:

My life was quite, daily sadness, some joyful conquest.
I was so much tired,
But so young
My man was already cold
And life was just routine
I thought to be hopeless but then
You came

In your eyes my past lives,
Thousands of fireflies in my heart

We spent many love hours
From sunset to sunrise
Having pizza and red wine for dinner in my small car
I remember that day on the sand
Branches as swards
We were knights of other times
Struggling for love

In your eyes my past lives,
Thousands of fireflies in my heart

You looked my eyes
You need me so much and I could not resist your touch
No, I could not resist your touch
We would live forever
Hesperos’ watching on us and I could not resist your touch
No, I could not resist your touch

As I said, the name Hexperos comes from the Hesperides too. These nymphs took care of a tree with golden apples and they sang with sweet voices. I got the idea studying a nice painting on this myth by J.M.W. Turner, a great English painter, who was also one of my subjects in my first thesis. I like to imagine myself as the Hesperides, since I sing in various ways (opera, Celtic, ethnic singing…), sometimes I feel that I’m not a single person. Each style is a shadow of myself and I think that everyone who loves arts, hides in his self a small garden of the Hesperides. Hexperos is music of love and mystery and I hope that the listener can feel it, not least thanks to our name. When I talk about love I mean love for the arts, for nature etc. and also romantic attraction. For this reason I decided to sing and put in music an extract from the novel ‘Women in love’ by D. H. Lawrence, in ‘The magnificence of the night’. Here I sing an episode that talks about two lovers in the woods, there is silence and there are strong emotions, our music has to be delicate and not invasive in order not todisturb the affair . Lawrence’s view of sex was innovative for his times. For this reason, he had a profound influence on the modern novel, which was a moral influence rather than an artistic one, since he was able to add new moral dignity to such an important aspect of human life.So, you can see that this name is full of important meanings for us, some regarding our favourite art subjects like romanticism, gothic literature, myths…; other regarding our lives and others as a metaphor of our music style.

Chain D.L.K.: Is this a way to underline your way of dealing with romanticism? What does it mean being romantic for you?
Hexperos: I love romantic literature because this movement is characterized by the reawakening of sensibility, of a subjective approach, the imagination is important and there is a strong interest for gothic literature and architecture. Romanticism is a harbinger of modern art, giving importance to human fantasy and feelings. We have a natural inclination for this artistic movement and you could see this in my previous Gothica project too. Maybe it is for this reason that I’m attracted by mythology, like romantic writers.

Chain D.L.K.: Listening to your first album “The garden of Hesperides” I noticed a general minimal approach to music. There aren’t any blasting moments or many instruments used at the same time. Would you tell us the reason of this choice?

Hexperos: Nature and love are great things, they lead our lives; they are beautiful in their simplicity but what is it simplicity? Behind simple things there is a complicated world.We like simple things. Often what seems simple is not, for example the song ‘Nana’ by M. de Falla appears simple, it is for piano and voice (we present our version for harp and voice) there are only two instruments, no chords, but the rhythm is so particular and complicated (there’s a ternary rhythm for the voice while there’s a binary one for the piano, often the voice is on the upbeat …) it’s a perfect union of two musicians. Furthermore, in this chaotic world we would like to guide the listener in a garden where you can rest, a peaceful place where music is a comforting embrace.

Chain D.L.K.: Both of you are collaborating with other projects. What are the things that make you feel enriched and what are the main troubles of collaborating with other people?
Hexperos: All the musicians with whom we’ve collaborated have enriched us. One can always learn something from the others but sometimes the professional or human relation can break because it is also difficult to share our intimate thoughts and lives with other persons. Maybe it’s for this reason that destiny wills it for me to write music with my partners.

Chain D.L.K.: “Artemisia” and “Ritual” are the darkest tracks of your album. I’m curious to know something more about them and about their creation, can you talk about them?
Hexperos: Our song entitled ‘Artemisia’ is dedicated to Artemisia Gentileschi, a great and mysterious female painter, who lived in the ‘600 and whose style belongs to Caravaggio school. I’ve admired her paintings in Florence since I was very young. I usually visit this city and its museum every year as my mother is from Florence. Artemisia’s life was full of troubles and sufferings caused by men and for this reason she often painted men decapitated with a strong realism.Regarding ‘Ritual’, Francesco wrote the rhythm of this song and when I heard it, I thought about shamans or witches performing rituals, it was natural to me to compose the vocal part thinking to sing as a spirit that is evoked.

Chain D.L.K.: What’s next for Hexperos?
Hexperos: We’re composing new songs and hope that our next album will come out next year. We hope to perform good live shows too. Given that this is the last question, I would like to invite everybody to visit our web site www.hexperos.com; our page on Equilibrium Music web site www.equilibriummusic.com and above all on Myspace www.myspace.com/hexperos where you can listen to some of our songs and find more pieces of information about us.Thanks to Chain DLK very much for this nice interview!Lets support real music buying our favourites CDs!!!

[interviewed by Maurizio Pustianaz] [proofreading by Marco Pustianaz]