Jammerzine has an exclusive interview with all three members of the indie rock legends known as Three Second Kiss, as well as presenting their new album, dropping today, titled ‘From Fire I Save The Flame’.
‘From Fire I Save The Flame’ is a frenetic journey across the soundsphere. Beautifully done so, like a blank canvas being filled with everything you wouldn’t expect but secretly crave. Adrenaline abound in each and every track. Time apart and creativity given a chance to rest and reflourish in such a way that you would find it hard to believe this isn’t a new, and hungry, band. But here it is. Eleven tracks of fuck yeah and focus from three artists that is more than a power trio; they’re a juggarnaut.
And, in this interview, we talk with all three members of Three Second Kiss, Sergio Carlini, Massimo Mosca, and Sacha Tilotta, about ‘From Fire I Save The Flame’, their long and hallowed history, and what lies in store for one of the most influential yet humble trio in rock.
About ‘From Fire I Save The Flame’
From Bologna, Three Second Kiss’ historical home, over the years the band’s operational base moved to Catania, Italy (in fact, today two-thirds of the group live there). No doubt something of the chaos and rhythm associated with this city, something of the constant nomadism on the BOCT axis have influenced the new compositional path.
Thus, 12 years after our last work (Tastyville, Africantape Rec. 2012), comes ‘From Fire I Save The Flame’, 9 tracks that do not pick up the band’s musical discourse where it was left off. At least to our ears it doesn’t sound the way we were. Nine tracks conceived between composition and instinct, heart and brain, light and darkness, influenced by endless displacements, logistical and existential difficulties, breakups and reconciliations, new loves and rediscovered friendships.
We do not review ourselves, as almost everyone does in their press kits. We do not quote individual songs praising their hidden virtues. Aren’t they ridiculous those bands who are self-congratulatory by putting themselves on the side of music writers? We will try not to do that. We are “inside” our sound and simply cannot define it from the outside. We just say that never like today, when life has become so complicated, dry, senseless, divisive, falsely social, never like today playing, composing, sharing music, and recording this record made sense to us.
However, we would like to report that to best capture this new state of mind, we called Don Zientara directly from Arlington/Washington DC to catch the sounds and reproduce the band’s amalgam. Don Zientara has been the perfect sound engineer to return the electricity and empathy of these 9 tracks of visionary and hard-hitting punk rock. Those sonic jams and freedom, free from a codified musical genre, which we believe have always been TSK’s trademark from the mid-1990s to the present, in that Italian post-punk scene able to cross national borders and get noticed abroad as well.
Summing up the story-line of their newest release, the members of Three Second Kiss state: ‘From Fire I Save The Flame’ is the record of a whole band, where there are no leads or leaders, but something that goes beyond the sum of its parts.”
About Three Second Kiss
7 albums to their credit, two of them recorded with Steve Albini, two participations in the All Tomorrow’s Parties UK festival (2002 and 2012 editions), international distribution and labeling (with Southern Rec, Slowdime Rec / Dischord Rec from Washington DC and Africantape Rec EU / Sickroom Rec Usa), 3 tours in the US together with bands such as June of 44, Shellac, Shipping News and several European tours, broadcasted by John Peel on BBC Radio One on their debut. Since its beginnings in Bologna in 1993, Three Second Kiss has been one of the leading bands of the Italian alternative punk scene, establishing its presence also on international stages, thanks to a personal approach to sound and composition, and a strong live attitude.
A powerful guitar/bass/drums trio with a raw, angular sound and a devotion to pure electricity. Sharp guitars and dynamic interplay between bass and drums. Three Second Kiss is a journey between rhythmic tremors and sudden metallic explosions, in perpetual balance between melody and dissonance. Today, 2024, the band releases its seventh studio album, From Fire I Save the Flame, recorded and mixed by Don Zientara, sound engineer for Fugazi and many Dischord records and bands.
Featured image by Maria Vittoria Trovato.
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/threesecondkiss/
https://www.instagram.com/threesecondkiss/