ArtistInfo

Ruins

Band,
Electronic and Dance

RUINS Bio (1978/1985) One September Wednesday of 1978 a new band was born in Mestre (Venice, Italy) and was named after a FRED FRITH composition entitled "RUINS" (featured in 1974 HENRY COW's band highly influential LP "UNREST"). The first band line-up was formed by ALESSANDRO PIZZIN (keyboards) together with FRANCO MORUZZI (drums) and GIORGIO SALVADEGO (bass guitar) and featured also a young ALEX MASI composing and playing in his new interesting and innovative style.Occasionally joined also by young multi talented performer and musical comrade ALESSANDRO MONTI (aka Unfolk) that early band was quite ahead of its time in the soon-to-come italian musical indipendent scenario. When in spring 1979 Alex Masi gave up the project PIERGIUSEPPE CIRANNA officially joined. Few old Ruins tracks were rehearsed and also some new composition were taken in serious consideration, but the band needed more time to focus its way and the project momentarily went on hold. In late 1980 RUINS was reformed by Ciranna & Pizzin as an experimental combo (occasionally with the help of other local musicians) mainly interested in experimenting with electronic devices and mixed media (also thanks to the invaluable contribution again from GIANNI VOLPATO and ALESSANDRO RIGATO with paintings and photos of powerful fresh creativity) while, at the same time, a new musical path was then pushed towards original no-dance music and dark electronic post-prog-pop-songs. In May 1981 RUINS recorded few brand new tunes which actually revealed to be the real cornerstone of their soon-to-follow musical project: "Elegant shout", "Short wave", "You're like a cigarette". Later in early June the band began the shooting of a possible "Short wave" video clip inside the so called "restless house". Witnesses reported at the time that the "Short wave" video should have been a real gem in the emerging italian indipendent scene given the lots of efforts that had been provided in the production set-up. It was especially filmed in 16mm film (with no new electronic video equipment support). But due to the lack of professional management, all the visual material went lost BEFORE any editing session was made. Regretfully there are no extra footage left or photo session pictures to remind the event, at least ... according to the band. On September 4th 1980 Art Retro Ideas label released one of the first ever italian indipendent new wave Lp compilation entitled "SAMPLES ONLY" featuring three RUINS songs: "Short wave", "Restless house" (recorded in july 1981) and "Elegant shout". On November 21st the same label released the first RUINS 45rpm single "Short wave" (with "You're like a cigarette" as b-side). Both the Lp and the 45 single received a remarkable attention between indipendent and major record officials. During the 1981 a bunch of new songs were also recorded, but it seemed quite natural at the time trying to give the band a wider musical spectrum. Starting from early june of 1982 auditions for a possible new line up set were planned. At the end on the same month Franco Moruzzi was asked to seat again on the drum stool while MASSIMO BERTATTO (bass) and MORENO BARBAZZA (percussion and backing vocals) were the new members of the new quintet combo. This line-up rehearsed for few weeks before re-recording almost the whole original songs previously recorded as a duo by Ciranna & Pizzin. This was also a great time for the birth of new beautiful and powerful compositions and luckily all the material was carefully recorded with the ANNA RICH mobile studio and filed into the Ruins musical archive for future releases. The band also released a limited edition tape named ART DANCE featuring some of the previously 4-tracks recordings and it was made soon available mainly for band promotional purposes. Some sort of "conceptual video" experimental production also have been filmed and presented in Mestre in late autumn 1982. The 5-pieces-combo did also went live on stage throughout the 1982 receiving very enthusiastic reviews. In early 1983 one of the previous 4-tracks recordings ("I don't know") was released and featured in the "Rockgarage compilation vol.1" sampler by the indipendent magazine ROCKGARAGE, one of the most important attempt to free the new italian musical scene from the usual business-oriented major labels way-of-doing things. In 1983 the band were signed from a major label in order to release a new single, and the old song "Fit of Nerves" from the Ruins/duo repertoire was chosen as a single release purpose. The song was then completely re-arranged for the new band and it was recorded in january 1983. Unfortunately enough, the final studio recording went under a too heavy disco-oriented production attitude treatment (made by a then world famous italian disco-producer) with tricks and other studio gimmicks that didn't suited the real band's sound at all. Luckily the band itself provided the 4tracks recording of "Stroll of Girls", chosen as what it seemed to be just a bizarre instrumental single "b-side" song. While setting up the promotion for the new single, Ciranna & Pizzin (always together with Volpato, Rigato and the brilliant new young photographer STEFANO PADOVAN) presented a new multimedial performance based on some William Burroughs' works. It was a time of great creativity and that's why Pizzin and Ciranna gave then birth to a really weird side-project: the complete cover version of the entire album AD GLORIAM from the international acclaimed italian prog band LE ORME. The songs (originally dated 1967) were completely revisited through mainly electronic sounds (with lots of "first generation" old drum machines and weird sound modules like the Pizzynth - for instance - a rude hand-made tone generator especially built from Alessandro himself). The results were a devastating mix-up combination of italian very sad new-wave atmosphere and the typical New Musik, Yello, Cluster & Kraftwerk electronic sounds. The vocals provided by Piergiuseppe (together with minimal electric guitar parts) still nowadays sound apparently very disturbing in their alienated far-out attitude. The project remained at a demo-level, but it's really a shame because it sureley deserved more attention from the men-in-charge of their recording company. Unfortunatley nothing else happened and the whole project dropped down quickly. Due to some unexpected problems the 5-pieces-line up suddenly disbanded, leaving the promotional work to be done in a different way. First new step was the release of a special limited tape/booklet issue entitled "Side roads" which featured some of both musical pathways the band was involved into. The experimental stuff presented some of the early audio/visual performances material and some previously unreleased solo recordings, while the "pop" (whichever meaning might have this word in this particular context) side had songs from the early duo recordings sessions like: "New Record", "Tricks to survive", "I don't know" and the wonderfully gorgeous jazzy tune "Skeleton in love"; two instrumentals performed live in trio in january 1981 ("The try") and with the quintet combo in early 1982 ("Brain flakes"). Another 4-tracks from previous studio band recording was featured in this rare release, a brand new Ciranna song "Red lips". The "Side Roads" release also featured few original moving drawings from ROBERTO ROSEANO (who actually began collaborating with the multimedial side of "Ruins project"). Two other side projects went over at the time, and were both bizarre and unpredictable, as always. The first was a DEVO/RESIDENTS medley as a tribute to these two influential bands ... which very soon became the idea for an entire original songs compilation composed in pure (or strictly-related) DEVO/RESIDENTS style. Roberto Roseano also provided the cover and the recordings were done but the lack of money at the time forced to drop down the idea. The other weird project was a selection of South American classic latin songs to combine in a brand new electro-context ... of this experiment only a proto-demo version survived. Meanwhile a new line up was set up, with the young and talented bass player PIPPO MONARO joining the remaining Ciranna, Pizzin and Moruzzi. Even if it immediately seemed a mainly transition band, all musicians involved gave their best efforts trying to further develope the musical boundaries of the band but - again - this band broke up due to lack of real support from the label and the management. In 1984 Ciranna & Pizzin went back as a duo project. After a short-period break, the duo began developing the new sound again pushing artistic boundaries towards a mainly electronic and dark-oriented sound. New drum machines and sequencers made their massive appereance in the Ruins-sound with quite interesting results. Also drum-loops were used (no samplers were available to the band at the time yet) in order to obtain a more natural feel in the rhythmic session to properly collide with the heavy sinthetic bass lines. The band was contacted from a new indipendent management company (BSR) which offered to take care of Ruins work. The deal was made and only thanks to the financial help of a local record shop owner, Ruins was able to release "RUINS e.p.", a 4 tracks extended play which featured the song "Fire!". This song got so much attention from the press and from the audience that it drove the band directly to a major record label deal to release a 12" single (b-side "Crime") with a wider promotional opportunity. While working on new song for the expected follow up, the duo also had the chance to release a completely instrumental experimental LP record in connection with the works of Venetian painter LUIGI VIOLA. In november 1984 BSR asked american video director Paul Allman to set-up a promotional video for the song "Fire!". The video was shot in Venice, right the night before Pizzin was forced to leave for the full-one-year then military service. On November 24th 1984 BSR showcased the "Marea/Tide" LP release with a special party held inside the wonderful venetian villa "Villa Sagredo". Once finally available, both the EP and the RUINS video "FIRE" received very good reviews and they were immediately featured in the main National Radio & Television programs. It was also included as "band of the month video" in one of the major musical TV program (DEEJAY TELEVISION), multiple daily broadcasts on the all-music television channel VIDEOMUSIC and also it went on top of musical charts from some of the most important FM radio at the time (Rai, Radio Studio 105 and Radio DeeJay). At the same time Ciranna & Pizzin composed and demoed few more songs in order to improve their new electronic sound. Following some international promoters' request, BSR provided to realize a new promotional video clip. Again with Allman, the production requested again the collaboration of Roberto Roseano and with the help of the owner of video archive from the Cavallino Art Gallery in Venice, Ruins had the opportunity to work mixing up new images and old rare archive video footage while filming the new FIRE video on february 6th 1985. After the last promotional appearance in Torino (late september 1985) during the celebration for the 25th annual congress of United Nations "O.I.L. foundation", things began get worstening, and due to unavoidable management problems the band split up on October 26th never releasing some of its best musical efforts to date. The RUINS musical legacy and experience stopped for a while. In 2007 the original 1982/1983 five members line up was reformed for a very short time, but it was the beginning of the new project. In 2011 USA independent record label Minimal Wave released ART DANCE, a collection of songs from the eighties. In 2012 Mannequin Records released an old RUINS 1981 song in DANZA MECCANICA compilation Lp In 2014 a new line up performed live for the Samples Only 2.0 release party Between 2014 and 2016 RUINS recorded quite a lot of brand new material still waiting for a complete release.

Members

	Alessandro Pizzin key IT
	Piergiuseppe Ciranna voc, g, b
	Pierluigi Monaro b, dr
	Franco Moruzzi dr, perc IT