Interview: Vestigial

Date: 05/07/2025

Place: Zagreb, Croatia

There are dark ambient acts that have enjoyed long and impressive careers, and then there are those that, like a modern-day Icarus, reached immense heights only to disappear from the face of the Earth soon afterwards. Such seemed the case with Vestigial, an Italian dark ambient act that, as a relative newcomer to the scene, managed to put out a very successful debut album on the legendary Cold Meat Industry label in 2008, only to retreat into obscurity for the next couple of decades, save for a compilation, reissue or live appearance here and there. This past year has changed all this - after a triumphant live comeback at the 2024 edition of the Phobos festival, this month saw the release of his sophomore album Descending Vastness, as well as the reissue of his debut Translucent Communion, both under the auspices of Cyclic Law. Therefore, when I heard that Vestigial would be making an appearance at the fourth edition of Ambientalika in Zagreb, Croatia alongside New Risen Throne, I didn't take much convincing to make a pilgrimage to such an event. Although I had seen Vestigial play live at the legendary Cyclic Law 10th Anniversary festival in Paris in 2013, I had never had the chance to speak to him face-to-face before, so I was elated that he made time for an interview with me before his gig.

The first order of the day was something that I was burning to know as a fan rather than an interviewer - the reasons behind Vestigial's decade-long absence from the scene. He answered the question in such a clear, structured way that it seemed almost premeditated.

There are really three main reasons behind what happened. The first is simply that I had a child. In addition to the usual discourse - the lack of free time, the impact on hobbies, the management of all the obligations that come together with a child - it also had an impact on my motivation. You see, once you get a child, you start to perceive life in a different way. It’s like a background force that, despite your instincts, forces you to be more positive, more forward-looking; there's an almost constant euphoria that masks the negative sides of reality. You become more patient, you want to channel positive energy in order to impart it upon your child. It’s as if all the motives that push you to create this kind of sound in the first place take a back seat. Rationally, you are aware that the world hasn’t suddenly become a better place, and even at a personal level, you have many reasons to be miserable, but you just somehow seem to focus on the positive sides of reality despite yourself. In short, you translate reality through a more positive lens than it objectively deserves, and that is bound to impact your musical outlook. Then there's the question of my personal background as well. I come primarily from post-metal, not dark ambient, and my primary instrument are drums, not MIDI keyboards and synthesizers. So when my son was born, I focused more on my activities as a drummer and left Vestigial somewhat on the side. A part of me simply craved to return to something a bit more physical, and with the time I had at disposal, I had to make a choice, as I couldn’t pull off everything.

By this point, I was already mesmerised by Peppe's calm, philosophical demeanour, highly contrasted with his Neapolitan accent and the sheer velocity at which words were coming out of his mouth. I let him continue.

It’s inspiration that I’d cite as the second reason. I firmly believe that in its core, this music genre - and by that I mean electronic music in general - is simple, and precisely because it’s simple, you should only release something if it’s important. By important, I mean that you have to feel it carries a certain weight, that it pays homage to your influences, and that someone should listen to it with the same reverence that you have for albums you consider landmark works. It needs to feel like you’re not just rehashing known elements, but that you’re adding something, however subtle, that is new and of value to the genre. I am firmly of the belief that if you’re composing something, and you’re not feeling any of the aforementioned, then it’s better not to release anything at all. I have composed a bunch of material over the past decade, yet I will never release most of it because I don’t feel much of it is adding anything truly important to the genre.

There was a certain beauty in the sheer incongruence of this big, eminently friendly guy spouting such intolerant criticism of himself. The verbal vitriol didn't stop there, though.

The third reason is that we live in the era of internet streaming, or in other words, a constant torrent of music, which I find completely insufferable. Just imagine being a young person discovering this genre today? I’d feel completely overwhelmed and disoriented by the sheer number of releases. There is no real need for even close to the amount of music that is being put out nowadays.

This is a sentiment I frequently hear from older musicians - that even an excellent piece of music risks being lost in the noise of the streaming age.

It doesn’t risk, it’s bound to be lost in the noise. And this is partly due to the fact that the scene of yesteryear no longer exists. I myself was formed by various genres, but I clearly remember the era of Cold Meat Industry, where there was a unifying force around it all; for better or for worse, this label acted as a filter for the dark ambient genre. They did exactly what I referred to before - they separated things that were good, but irrelevant, from things that had real impact. Cyclic Law has taken over the reins from Cold Meat Industry in a certain sense, but they can't offset the impact of generational change in the genre. To me, it feels like the old guard hasn't properly transferred the family heirlooms to the younglings; I don’t feel that most new artists operate at the same level as the old ones. It's not a question of originality - this genre is not an easy one to create truly new soundscapes in - but of personality. And that’s because the scene lost the unity it once had, at the level of contacts, interests, a common vision among artists, and so on. We in Italy probably felt this generational shift more than any other nation. To put it quite bluntly, we are living at a moment in history where the notion of subculture - or even culture - is not considered important anymore, whether we’re talking about music or in general terms. My generation lived this music primarily through its cultural aspect, with an almost political attachment. I feel like all of that has got lost along the way, and now it's mere music that remains. The dematerialisation of music has destroyed a part of its essence and thrown all artists into this ocean of anonymity, from which it’s truly difficult to emerge. At least at my age, I find it very difficult to find my way to new listeners, and it feels like those of us who still listen to this genre are mostly the same old people. I don’t think it’s just my problem, though, or even a problem limited to this genre; it’s a general trend in all music subcultures.

It's hard not to agree with this. After all, it seems that people nowadays no longer make any effort to truly explore music. Instead, everything is pre-determined and served by algorithms.

Exactly. There is no longer the concept of re-listening to an album, or even of albums as such. It’s all become an endless ephemeral playlist with no substance. I know that I sound like a grumpy old man with all of this, but I just can’t make my peace with the loss of the album. The album is important, the album is a concept, and most importantly, the album is a story. If I take my own latest album that’s just come out, my primary objective wasn't to put out music, but to tell a story. Creating a story takes a lot more time than just composing music, but that’s what makes it worthwhile. People have often written to me over the past decade - something that makes me very happy - asking when new material would come, and I used to tell them that Vestigial is what has already been released, not some undefined future stuff. Only half in jest, I was basically telling them to re-listen to what they already had at their disposal.

This brought up an interesting point. Regardless of his acerbic, tongue-in-cheek interactions with fans, Vestigial is unique in that, judging by the number of social media followers and Last.fm listeners, he seems to command a bigger fanbase with a single bona-fide album than many dark ambient acts with much more extensive discographies.

This gives me more pleasure than anything, the knowledge that my work was appreciated and not relegated to oblivion over the years. I’ve already told you that I’m a massive fan of Cold Meat Industry, and when I sent my first mini-CD to Roger, he was shocked that the address on the envelope said Naples, Italy, because the sound was so Scandinavian. So he responded to me by proposing to release an LP, and back then, it was an absolute dream of mine to even receive any kind of answer; I was a massive collector of Cold Meat Industry releases at the time.

Let's not forget that we are talking about mid-2000s, which I can personally attest was a time when obtaining all of a label’s releases was much more of an undertaking than today.

So you can imagine what it felt like for me to have my music released on this label; even though I was only releasing my very first full-length, to me it felt like I had already made it. And rather than create any kind of arrogance, this fact inspired in me a certain sense of responsibility. I suddenly had this awareness that my work was being printed and distributed in hundreds, even thousands of copies, and that I had standards to live up to. This caused my impostor syndrome to kick in, and I started second-guessing every single decision. I wanted to take my time with everything, to perfect everything, to make sure I was living up to this incredible success that I perceived.

I had noticed certain vestiges of this (no pun intended) while listening to Vestigial's latest album that officially came out literally a day before this interview, and I while I wouldn’t necessarily call it different - one can immediately tell that it’s Vestigial - it does sound somewhat calmer if that’s the right word. Like it’s the work of a more mature person in a way.

My creative process hasn’t changed much since 20 years ago, at least when it comes to the instrumental/technical part. One thing that has changed, however, is that I’ve been using a lot less synth, and a lot more samples, especially noise-inspired ones that were not as present in my earlier works. That’s about the only technical advancement that I’ve made, and that I’ve continued to develop on the next album to come as well. Also, I'm very emotional, and a very introspective person, so it makes sense that my musical output doesn't sound exactly the same across a span of two decades. In fact, the next album will be even more melodic than this one, branching out into new concepts, almost crossing the borders of dark ambient in a certain sense. I’ve been working with two opposing poles of my music, which is not that easy, but the resulting atmosphere is extremely rewarding.

Interestingly enough, the PR material for Descending Vastness mentions that it's a mix of old and new material; not exactly something that musicians often use in a positive context, or even admit to.

Descending Vastness is first and foremost the result of a lot of reworking. It was long in the gestation stage, and certain things lost their charm along the way, which I don’t necessarily regret. When you come back to old material after a long time, you simply don’t see it the same way. Everything seems projected, you can’t always recognise what you were trying to achieve, and in those cases, I feel the need to sublimate, to throw away the components that feel inadequate and keep the ones that have stood the test of time. Other times, things can feel aged, often not very gracefully, so I still take them with me, but I also try to give them new life without changing their essence. Then, there's the very prosaic fact that I’m not the master of backups either - some material simply got lost in time rather than being discarded. It was all part of the process.

Another stunning aspect of the new album are the accompanying visuals: the cover art, the video for one of the tracks, and as it turned out, also the video backdrop for the live performance that I was to witness a little later that evening.

I am fortunate to work in the advertising industry, specifically in animation and motion graphics, so I’m able to use the skills I’ve developed professionally over the years in my musical work. It’s like being able to speak the same language in a different environment, and I really think it elevates the project, since the visual identity of the album and the live performance representing it have to be aligned in a way. In fact, I almost find music to be of secondary importance in a live setting, because most of it is played back anyway, so the visuals are the fundamental part of what separates a live performance from simply listening to the music on your own. My goal is to conjure a complete sensory experience, and if the visuals don’t match the music, you lose that synchronisation that is the goal of every performer. And like the music, the visuals need to be a voyage in their own right, with a beginning and an end, particularly the conclusions that I’d like the audience to draw from the experience. So for me, the visuals represent 60-70% of the live experience itself, and consequently, I invest a corresponding amount of time to making sure that they are adapted to the set. To give you a rough idea, the visuals that you will see tonight took me 4-5 months to complete.

On the upside, someone who has invested such an effort is unlikely to let it go to waste, so I used the opportunity to express my hope that we'll be seeing more of Vestigial live. After all, it was Phobos 2024 that marked the return of Vestigial to the world of the living.

Indeed, Phobos was something of a reintroduction to the scene for me. I took up working on Vestigial again seriously about two years ago, even though there were compilations and other bits and pieces here and there over the years, including a split on Loki Foundation. As you’ve realised by now, I have an unhealthy obsession over saturation, so I didn’t want to release too much stuff at once.

Coming back to our physical location, I had to inquire how the Zagreb performance came about in the first place, as after all, it’s not exactly known as the capital of dark ambient music.

I have known Miljenko for years; in fact, TeHÔM was one of the projects that got me into this scene in the first place. When he told me he was organising another edition of the festival, and that he wanted me to participate, it didn’t take long for me to accept. I felt like it was the right time, like it was my turn to perform in Zagreb in a certain sense. We are not too numerous in this scene, so I'm always eager to take part in each opportunity that presents itself. Especially when New Risen Throne is joining as well.

As I've already mentioned in the introduction to this interview, Descending Vastness is not the only new release of Vestigial's these days; there's also the reissue of the debut album by Cyclic Law, no small feat in its own right.

The idea came from Frédéric, perhaps for the simple reason that the original release on Cold Meat Industry had been out of print for ages. I’d personally seen insane prices of like 80€ on Discogs, which is a situation that I was extremely uneasy with; I even have a friend who managed to snag a copy from wherever for 45€ only for it to arrive in a horrible condition, very used and torn, highway robbery in short. Frédéric was aware of this, so I gladly agreed to give this album new life.

This new life came along with new artwork as well, which is always a controversial decision for cult releases of old.

I didn’t want the reissue to be a mere reprint, and besides, the original artwork never really reflected the vision I had for the album; it was changed after the fact and without me being consulted ahead of the original release. I found it a bit too run-of-the-mill, a bit too classic, even if I don’t explicitly dislike it. I also felt that the new packaging format of the Cyclic Law release deserved a different artwork.

This was the fourth or fifth time that we mentioned Cyclic Law in the conversation, and it was obvious that Vestigial's relationship with the label was more than just a marriage of convenience.

Cyclic Law feels like the most logical, the most physiological home for Vestigial. As I have already said, I feel like Frédéric is carrying forth the Cold Meat Industry torch with Cyclic Law to a certain extent. The label took up the mantle of being a filter for the genre; it has an importance and a mission to it. In addition, I feel like he’s almost defining the evolution of the genre in a certain way. Just look at the way he’s diversified his releases over the past few years; he is stepping outside the bounds of classic dark ambient, which is exactly what the genre has always been about. So it was a very easy choice for me. I’ve known him for many years, and I've always felt very comfortable and very at home with Cyclic Law.

Curiously enough, it was actually Frédéric that broadcasted Vestigial's personal identity to wider audiences for the first time in one of his PR materials for the reissue. I myself was unfamiliar with his name until that point (for the curious, it's Peppe Ferrillo).

[laughs] This was another beautiful aspect of the Internet back then; you had access to some, but not all of the information, and it was perfectly possible to have a network of accomplished artists without anyone knowing who anyone else was! There was a beauty to that mystery, but it all went away with the advent of social media. Now we all know everything about everyone else, don’t we? It’s a shame in some way. I have discovered myself thanks to social media that some bands that I had previously held in high regard were composed of total imbeciles.

And yet, Peppe himself runs an Instagram account for Vestigial, unlike for instance New Risen Throne that I also had the honour to listen to (and interview) the same evening. I had to point out that Gabriele seemed like the one more loyal to the tenets of Cold Meat Industry.

And I entirely relate to that mindset! The thing that ruins social media for me is that there is a set of expectations you have to fulfil. People expect to see a constant stream of information, something that I’m terrible at. It’s as if the medium operates at a certain speed that’s just at odds with me. But I have to admit that it’s extremely useful for communicating and keeping in touch with people.

As usual, I closed the conversation by snooping around regarding future plans - a topic that seems particularly relevant given Vestigial's unstable past.

I definitely plan to keep playing live, that much is certain. I’m also working on the new album, which will come out in a less-than-Biblical timeframe, unlike the last one. I’d also love to do a vinyl release, even on another label if necessary; I know that it’s a very expensive and somewhat fickle process. I think the recent surge in the popularity of vinyl is a physiological reaction to the insipidness of the digital age, and it seems transversal across all genres. It’s one way out of the sheer saturation, I suppose. A vinyl record is something that by its very nature invites you to focus, to concentrate, to dedicate more attention than usual. And then there’s the fact that nothing does as much justice to an album artwork as a vinyl release. Let’s see, but I’d be very happy to have one released.