| | | | | | | | | | | | CURRENT LINE-UP Diego Merletto (vocals, synths, samplers, programs,fx), Froxeanne (vocals, synths, samplers, programs,fx), The Count (live keyboards) PAST LINE-UPs 2007-2011 Diego Merletto (vocals, synths, samplers, programs,fx), Froxeanne (vocals, synths, samplers, programs,fx), Stefano Nieri (live guitars) 1998-2007 Diego Merletto (vocals, synths, samplers, programs,fx), Froxeanne (vocals, synths, samplers, programs,fx) 1995 -1998 Diego Merletto (vocals, synths, samplers, programs,fx), Claudio Brosio (live guitars) 1994 Diego Merletto (vocals, synths, samplers, programs,fx) BIOGRAPHY "We are THE FROZEN AUTUMN, we ride the crest of the FROZEN  WAVE" (Diego Merletto & Froxeanne 2009) The project THE FROZEN AUTUMN was born in May 1993 in Turin thanks to Diego Merletto,  who had been already involved as a singer and keyboard player in several bands of the dark-wave scene in Turin since 1987. The background inspiring  Diego has been the music released by the British label 4AD in the '80, together with European cold-wave, especially the electronic one, belonging to the same era. Neverthless, since the issue of the first and only demo, "Oblivion", dating back to 1994,  the sound of TFA (initially conceived as Diego's one-man band) immediately stood out for its original melodic frames and rigorous sound research amounting to dreaming- atmospherical tracks as well as danceable songs reminding of 80's electronic wave, all style cornerstones to be found throughout the band's productions. In the same year, Diego decided to rely upon a guitarist for the live concerts that had soon been scheduled, even though he also decided to stay the sole and only mastermind as for TFA compositions: so did Claudio Brosio come into the picture. In 1995 the debut album "Pale Awakening" was released for the Frankfurt-based label Weisser Herbst: it contains "Oblivion" 6 tracks + 4 brand new tracks, among which the unforgettable piú "This Time", real dancefloor hit for this music genre lovers. During the same year the duo performed abroad for the first time at Die Insel, Berlin historic location situated on an isle of river Spree. This album got great feedback: even though it hadn't been massively prtomoted at all, sold over 5000 copies, a huge amount for a non-mainstream band at its debut on the market. In spite of the contractual terms, only the label benefit of this success; this is the reason why Diego decided to leave it for the Milan-based Eibon Records, that released the band's second album "Fragments Of Memories" in December 1997, (featuring another outstanding track: "There's No Time To Recall"), a full-lenght  that is everything but minimalistic, whose arrangements are generous, its harmonies rich, open, catchy.   This album marked an increased interest for the artwork (made by the band itself) and the debut as a singer of a very young Froxeanne, not part of the band yet at that time. Several successful live gigs in Italy and Germany followed, climaxing in April 1998 at Tenax in Florence, Claudio's last concert with TFA, the live guitarist  who, in the meantime had lost hi interest in this project. Immediately afterwards,  Diego Merletto & Froxeanne (vocals and keyboards) conceive a side-project to The Frozen Autumn, named STATIC MOVEMENT, whose style is not so different from TFA's, but guitars are not there anymore, there are female vocals on more tracks, and above all, the focus has been even more on sound synthesis, especially on vintage machines like Elka Synthex, PPG Wave 2.2 and S.C.I. Pro - One, by conceiving the electronic timbres as sound matter to be forged in an original,  innovative and independent way. After 6 months of frantic co- writing work, "Visionary Landscapes" (Eibon Records, March 1999) was born: a little coffret containing 10 electronic jewels, that, due to the bad distribution made by the German Novatekk, is still looking for a real acknowledgment. This year marked the developement of another great passion of Diego's, videoart, (already massively expressed by him during TFA concerts by means of his evocative self-made background videos) by producing the black and white videoclip of the song "Nouvelle Vague" (track included in "VisionaryLandscapes"), released as a multimode cd-rom in 2001. Even though the duo has released only one album as STATIC MOVEMENT, this side-project experience was important  because it laid the foundations for the so-called "electronic shift" of TFA, as witness as shown by their next release: "Emotional Screening Device" (Eibon Records 2002). Carachterized by driving electronic filigrees, in addition to catchy, dynamic rhythms, (as for the teaser "Is Everything Real?", whose videoclip was filmed later), as well as episodes of hypnotic instrumental electro. Several concerts in different parts of Italy and Europe followed,  all arousing great interest, but particularly successful was the one taking place in September 2002 at the legendary "Paradiso" club in Amsterdam. In 2003 TFA broke their relationship with Eibon Records, because of their different, irreconcilable points of view, and begun the tormented composition of their new album and made some  collaborations with other artists. TFA had till then collected also a large extra-European following, so in 2004 (just after realeasing their first DVD "The the band finally played live also outside Europe, namely in Chile and e in Peru, literarly sending the audience into a frenzy.  After carrying out other remixes and guest-singing with other musicians, the new album "Is Anybody There?" was finally released in September 2005 by the German label Pandaimonium Records, and under license, also for the Argentinian Twilight Records and the Russian Gravitator Records.  "Is Anybody There?" is an ice-cold,  styilistically flawless album, a never redundant "electro-chiselled" work: its essential, clean, almost graphic elegance, make it TFA least  easy -listening release. Probably these features were the key to access one the most fascinating places in Eastern Europe: so did the duo land in 2006 also in Russia for 2 unforgettable concerts in Moscow and Saint Petersburg during a really...frozen autumn. During the following 3 years, the duo collaborated with other (both Italian and foreign) artists not only for music works, but also for graphic layouts and videoart. In the meantime, at the end of 2007, the band decided to rescind the contract with Pandaimonium Rec. in advance and in the same  period they started to rely upon a live guitarist again: Stefano Nieri ("borrowed" by the band Act Noir). They therefore started  to perform not only with a live electronic setup, made of synths only,  but also with a relatively more "rock" setup thanks to the addition of guitars. The band performed then in Itay and the Netherlands, then in 2008 took contact with Twilight Records again that in 2009 released 3 cd-digipack reprints (2 by TFA, and the SM album). During Autumn 2009,  another live member got on board, for keyboards this time: The Count (from the  electronic solo project Nabla Operator), in order to add even more live-played parts on stage. With this 4-member-line-up, most of the double DVD "Seen From Under Ice" (Twilight Records, March 2010) were filmed. This DVD is a collection of ad hoc filmed live in studio sessions featuring re-arranged tracks, alternated with videoart excerpts taken from the background videos usually projected on stage during their live gigs + official videoclips and rare live shootings of the 90's. Diego & Froxeanne have been currently working since a long time on some new tracks and the release of a new single (for an Italian label) has been scheduled for this autumn: another chapter in their so peculiar music language they lately love to define "FROZEN WAVE" describing their ice-cold wave style. This new single songs will be presented live on stage on 8th October at Ekidna in Carpi (Modena, Italy) and on 23rd October at Club Inferno in São Paulo in Brasil.