KKD
The Apple 2E lights up the darkness in the dorm room of Alessandro Molinari and Giancarlo Vitali, both graduates of Fermi di Modena, considered to be the cradle of the Italian Silicon Valley. It was at Fermi that they began to get a taste for chemical-electronic experiments in the world of music, founding the band Ozono Lysis to grab hold of the New Wave sound.
But tuning into the new trend is not enough: they want to dive deeper, explore in ways that are more pure, more free. And it is in this spirit that in 1981, KKD is born.
The dilapidated hotel where they meet to rehearse with a few bands from the underground scene in Modena has a certain atmospheric genius: it inspires creativity, dreams and debasement.
Here, Alessandro Molinari and Giancarlo Vitali decide to begin a collaboration for KKD with Loris Barbi, lead vocalist for Ozono Lysis, and Guido Molinari, on keyboards for Polaroyd. Sounds stolen from the radio and from the street, noises, interference: every reverberation—captured, re-worked, combined with electric drums, with synthesizers—serves to create a newly sonorous sound. Recorded voices are distorted with a Texas voice translator; electric guitars are manipulated by a Korg MS20. These and other experiments with old tools, combined with the first electronic instruments, create the unmistakable sound of KKD.
But even music is not enough for them; they push their experimentations to new frontiers that stimulate their curiosity. The run-down hotel, shrouded in Po Valley fog, fills up with photo developing equipment, graphic design implements, video editing tools, and the hotel owner is their cohort—Guido Molinari’s father— dedicated to Sunday flea market hunts for receivers, expired film, and other technical memorabilia, only seemingly useless.
Many artists gravitate toward this decadent space, where dusky rooms begin lighting up with ideas and coming to life with productivity.
The word continues to spread about KKD. They are invited to DJ Red Ronnie’s clubs, guru of Italian music critics in the ‘80s, and they make ghost-appearances in “video concerts,” where they broadcast music and video graphics in a kind of precursor of the VJ-set.
And when they appear on stage, they sport colored or gelatin cards on their chests which transform into screens onto which images are projected, both brightly colored and black and white.
Despite theirreclusive and reserved character, KKD collaborates with New Wave Italian, bands, admired by Ralph Records, the cult American New Wave label. Their songs "And Your Mind" and "TV House" are included in the cult compilation "First Relation,” curated by Lisfrank - Fulvio Guidarelli and produced by Must.
Today, KKD has been rediscovered by the new Minimal Wave community via social media as a cult band, and Daybed, from Berlin, has recorded a cover of “And Your Mind” on their latest LP, produced by the highly prestigious Swedish label, Beläten,
KKD’s experiments in musical composition and video art continue.
