Band: STEARICA
Album: Golem 202020
VÖ: 19.03.2021
Label/Vertrieb: Monotreme Records / Cargo
Website: https://www.stearica.net
STEARICA is a three-piece band from Turin, Italy, comprising Francesco Carlucci, Luca Paiardi and Davide Compagnoni, who first bonded as teenagers at school over a shared passion for combining primordial rhythms and infectious melodies with avant-garde stylings.
Their sound has evolved over the past 20+ years of touring with boundary-pushing artists like Nomeansno, GirlsAgainstBoys, Damo Suzuki, The Ex, Acid Mothers Temple, Zu, etc. International festival appearances include Primavera Sound and AMFest (Spain) Villette Sonique (France) Raw Power, Hokaben and ArcTanGent (UK), Dunk! (Belgium) and A Colossal Weekend (Denmark).
Their debut album “Oltre”, released in 2007 on Italy’s Homeopathic Records, featured special guests Dälek, Amy Denio (Fred Frith, Derek Bailey, Matt Cameron, etc.), Jessica Lurie (Bill Frisell, Nels Cline) and Nick Storring (Picastro, Damo Suzuki network). The album was re-issued on vinyl by Spanish label Aloud Records in 2011 for their appearance at Primavera Sound.
In 2010 after 2 extensive european tours with Japanese Space-Psych troubadours Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., they collaboratively created a document of a friendship between the two bands on the LP “STEARICA invade Acid Mothers Temple”, released jointly by Robot Elephant Records (UK) and Homeopathic Records.
In 2009 and 2011 The Wire featured the band on their ‘Wire Tapper’ covermount CD.
In 2011, STEARICA VS Der Golem came to life, arising from an idea of the Italian National Cinema Museum in collaboration with Traffic Free Festival (one of the biggest music festivals in Italy)
The band composed and performed the live soundtrack for the first time during MITO/Torino-Milano International Music Festival, selling out the main hall of Cinema Massimo in Turin, on the occasion of the presentation of the restored film “Der Golem, Wie Er In Die Welt Kam”. In 2013, the band performed the live soundtrack at the Ravenna Nightmare International Festival - the main horror and fantastic film festival in Italy - and the Rimusicazioni Film Festival in Bolzano (winning the Audience Award).
Their third album,"Fertile" – with guest appearances by Colin Stetson (Arcade Fire, Tom Waits, LCD Soundsystem, ...), Scott McCloud (Girls Against Boys) and Ryan Patterson (Coliseum, Fotocrime) - was released in 2015 on UK label Monotreme Records, accompanied by their most extensive headline tour around Europe.
To mark their 20th anniversary as a musical brotherhood, STEARICA released a single-track musical odyssey of 20 minutes and 20 seconds entitled ‘20YRS’, featuring guest appearances by Eros Giuggia on alto and soprano sax and Franz Goria from Italian cult band Fluxus on vocals, along with a limited edition screenprint poster created by Malleus Art Rock Lab, on Monotreme Records
2020 marks another anniversary: the centenary of the first ever screening of the German classic horror film “Der Golem, Wie Er In Die Welt Kam”, the live soundtrack for which STEARICA composed and performed live in 2011. An album of 10 tracks from their score entitled “Golem 202020” has been recorded to mark the occasion and will be released digitally and on limited vinyl on Monotreme Records (ROTW) and Garrincha (Italy).
About the project and its inspiration:
Paul Wegener - who served as screenwriter, director and performer - said about Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (The Golem: how he came into the world): “With this film I went deeper into the domain of pure cinema. It all depends on the image, on a certain flou in which the fantastic world of the past joins the world of the present. I understood that photographic technique would determine the fate of cinema. Light and shadow occupy the same role in cinema as rhythm and cadence do in music.”
The intuition of the author regarding the analogy between cinematographic and musical creation is implicitly reflected in the work carried out by STEARICA, who approached the work letting themselves be guided by instinct, and therefore by an innocent look: similar to that of the girl who, in the final section of the film, quietly climbs into the arms of the Golem because she does not know who the good and the bad are, what Good or Evil is.
The anthropomorphic monster figure of the Golem, perpetuated over the centuries through popular legends, still represents an archetype of extraordinary allegorical power: both because of the “artificial” nature of its genesis and because it embodies the image of the ‘other’ that can be molded into a scapegoat.
The persistent relevance of the subject, combined with the intrinsic value of the film, a universally recognized classic of silent cinema, prompted Stearica to give their best, engaging in one of the most intense artistic experiences faced by the band. Testimony of this is Golem 202020, an album with a shadowy appearance, a consequence of its premises and reflection of the place where it took shape: Turin, a crossroads between black and white magic.
Tracklisting:
1. The Stars Reveal
(an impending calamity - chapter 1)
2. How He Came Into The World
(shaping his soul like clay - chapter 2)
3. The Great Spell
(the invocation of Astaroth - chapter 2)
4. The Shem
(Golem comes to life - chapter 2)
5. A Strange Servant
(Golem’s first errand - chapter 3)
6. The Rose Festival – part 1
(the sad scent of a different flower.- chapter 3)
7. The Rose Festival – part 2
(save me and I will pardon your people - chapter 3)
8. Rejoyce Ye, Ye!
(the sound of the shofar - chapter 4)
9. In Flames
(the fire spell - chapter 5)
10. Der Golem
(the angels’ theme – chapter 5)
