Pentagon Tales: Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo

1. Where are u right now?
Torino, Italy

2. What’s happening in your country/city at the moment?
The unbearable nothing of total lockdown

Are there any restrictions?Are venues/shops/bars opened?
All closed but pharmacies and food stores

3. Did u have any tour/gig planned before this Thing started?
Yes, all cancelled

4. How this situation is reflecting on your everyday life?
It is highly distressing and politically worrying

5. How the Music Community in your country/city is reacting?
We are keeping a ongoing dialogue to figure out together how to deal both with the current situation and its possible outcome

6. Do u usually have any help from the Government if u’re a musician in your country?Do musicians get money if they tour?
Absolutely nothing

7. How the Government reacted?Did they think about the economical loss and disaster the musicans are facing?
Those of us that are registered as self employed will get 2 bonuses of 600€ each, that’s it

8. What’s the social situation where u live?How people in general are living these days?What’s the percentage of your friends that right now is not working for this reason?
Torino is a pretty civilized town with a good art and culture scene, still you can start feel tension and frustration growing due to how bad this situation is being managed both by the central gov and local authorities. Most of my friends work in the art and entertainment or run their own activity like bars, restaurants, venues, stores…so pretty much none of us is currently working

9. How’s reacting the Society and do u think after this will be over something will change in the everyday life?Do u think people will change anything in their life?
I think we all as a society are at a croosroads between totalitarian surveillance and citizen empowerment as well as nantionalism and global solidarity Hard to say now which direction will be taken, I think that our duty as artists is actually trying to put ideas out there pointing in the direction of openess and inclusivity

10. Is there anything u would recommend to the people of the music world during these hard times?
Let’s remember we are a community and act accordingly, be there for each other

11. Is there any book/lp/movie u read/listened/watched recently that u would recommend ?
These are the latest albums I bought and listening to on repeat lately: Wire “Mind Hive”, Loscil “Lifelike”, Lee Scratch Perry “Heavy Rain”, Nazar “Guerilla”, Human Impact “s/t”, Johann Johansson “Last and First Men”, Six Organs Of Admittance “Companinon Rises”, Yves Tumor “ Heaven To A Tortured Mind”, Caterina Barbieri “Ecstatic Computation”, I can also tell you that the new album by Einsturzende Neubauten to come out in May is absolutely superb, ad here is a new piece of mine created during the lockdown which I think describes quite well my current emotional state https://fabriziomodonesepalumbo.bandcamp.com/album/out-of-sight Movies: I’m a bit of a movie junkie, I’m pretty much watching movies all of the time and one of the thing I’m missing the most now is actually going to the theatre. Among the latest releases I would say “Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse” Books: I pretty much read only autobiographies (and re-read Philip Dick’s “Ubik”), currently David Lynch’s and John Waters’