Fairytales Of The Supersurvivor

The fifth album from Marsmobil has been hailed by many as their best yet. With closer ties to “Minx” (2006) than the last two albums, “Fairytales Of The Supersurvivor” returns to Marsmobil’s signature strength of wondrously brilliant songs (“And The Fishes In The Ocean”, “Shadows Of The Inner Light”) that blend off-the-wall cinemascope sounds with dazzling beats and punchy, powerful hooks to create uniquely distinctive art pop anthems.

As always with Marsmobil, Roberto Di Gioia writes, plays, sings and programs everything himself. Here, as on “Minx”, he’s brought in support from a fabulous singer – the very wonderful Amber Lin, who contributes vocals on four songs. All the cover illustrations are also by Di Gioia.

Multi-instrumentalist Roberto Di Gioia needs little introduction. The curious can explore his biography, discography and extensive lists of projects and collaborations as musician and songwriter (see below) for an impression of the hugely diverse achievements of this multi-talent and brilliant musician.

As a topical heads-up, Roberto Di Gioia is also the founder of the German jazz supergroup Web Web and released the album “Oracle” in September 2017. The second Web Web album will follow in early 2018, hard on the heels of the fifth Marsmobil release. Di Gioia also wrote and produced “Teufelswerk” for DJ Hell and contributed virtually all the songs on Hell’s latest album, “Zukunftsmusik”.

Roberto Di Gioia on “Fairytales Of The Supersurvivor”:

Strictly speaking, the album’s genesis was when I was 12 years old.

It was a sunny Sunday in spring 1977, and I was at the village church with my grandparents. It would be the last time I attended a church service. I remember it clearly.

The priest was preaching about how people were all sinners. My thoughts wandered and I began to imagine what it would be like if the priest started praying like this:

“Oh my Lord Milord, please praise my land and my fields and my country,

let my animals grow slowly and tender, I will eat them as soon as possible.

Oh my Lord, also praise my maidservant, I`m in love with her deeply.”

My imagination took hold and I didn’t hear a single word of his boring sermon.

That moment was the birth of my album trilogy, “Ode: …”

When I was ten, I was a boarder at the music-focused high school in Eichstätt. I was the smallest there. Even wearing those weird 1970s Clarks shoes with the wooden platforms, I was still the smallest. The tall, strong, good-looking guys got the girls. I didn’t.

Most of the students there were already brilliant musicians, young as they were. Everyone had flawlessly mastered Chopin preludes, Beethoven piano sonatas and Schubert impromptus. I wasn’t the worst, more average, but those good-looking guys played the piano superbly – and that impressed the girls.

Making a virtue out of necessity, I taught myself to play jazz. Nobody at school was any good at jazz. I composed dramatic, emotional jazz ballads and delivered wild, passionate improvisations oozing modal harmonies at our annual concert. And hey presto – I found I could wind both the teachers and the pretty girls around my little finger...

That was a pivotal moment in my life.

What could I do in my situation to make my life better? How could I make a virtue out of necessity?

Since then, I’ve never been at a loss for a way out. Can’t go straight on? Go right. Path blocked? Try turning left instead.

My friend and colleague in music, Samon Kawamura, calls me the SUPERSURVIVOR.

“Fairytales Of The Supersurvivor” is a self-contained work made up of individual short stories, some interconnected, most autobiographical.

Because of this, it’s my most personal work to date.

Peter Kruder, the producer of MARSMOBIL (and one half of the duo Kruder & Dorfmeister), told me this story as we were working on a song. A blind American singer was listening to the radio one day when he heard some Mongolian throat singing. He was immediately fascinated and started to learn the complex vocal technique. He learnt it so thoroughly that when he took part in a competition in Mongolia for overtone singers from all over the world, he beat all the great Mongolian master singers and won first prize.

He was a Supersurvivor too …As soon as Peter told me the story, we wrote the text for “The Story Of The Mongolian Horse” and spontaneously composed the music.

A further starting-point and inspiration for the album was an instrument that I bought new (or new to me) – the Korg PS 3100 from 1977. Only around 300 synthesizers of this type were ever produced. This unique, strangely idiosyncratic instrument was my pathway to transforming my ideas into music.

Over time, a different world of enormously exciting sounds began to build, and literally every type of sound that could be coaxed out of the instrument was created.

Ethereal, eclectic sounds and textures, peculiarly hypnotic melodies, shapes that materialized, then vanished forever. Downbeats from drum machines weave a futuristic, psychedelic character for the album “Fairytales Of The Supersurvivor”.

Marsmobil live:

Roberto Di Gioia: keys (Juno 106), drum machines (rx-11), vocals.

Ferdinand Kirner: guitar, fx, vocals.

Plus diverse guest vocalists

Roberto Di Gioia has worked with a host of jazz greats including Woody Shaw, Art Farmer, James Moody, Johnny Griffin, Charlie Rouse, Clifford Jordan, Clark Terry, Roy Ayers, Gregory Porter, Klaus Weiss and many more.

In early 1990 he joined Klaus Doldingers Passport.

As a pianist, he recorded with artists including Udo Lindenberg (MTV Unplugged,2011), Charlie Watts (“Music Of The Rolling Stones”, 2005), Console (“Reset The Preset”, 2003), The Notwist (“Shrink” 1998, “Neon Golden”, 2002).

Since 2007, he has played with Samon Kawamura and Max Herre as KAHEDI: Max Herre (“Hallo Welt”, 2012), Joy Denalane (“Gleisdreieck”, 2017), and many more.

Marsmobil Live:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgMhwZSUk3k

Marsmobil Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boEXSV8yOsM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP_ev7LmjeM