The Lorien Cultural Association – the historical archives of alternative music- was founded in Milan on October 28, 1997, as a response to the sad truth that a significant part of the musical material produced by various alternative music groups was already not to be found, and with every probability, lost forever.

To save this precious heritage Guido Giraudo, a former member of the group Amici del Vento, Claudio Volante, a young activist, collector and researcher of alternative music from Turin, and Antonio Masina, an expert software programmer and enthusiastic music student, joined forces.

The establishment of the association was urged on by a then Councillor of the Regional Government, the late Marzio Tremaglia, an unremitting advocate of unconventional cultures and self-expression with deep-rooted love for national and popular traditions.

As stated in its articles of constitution, the Lorien Association has two operating missions: one is strictly documentation, the other is promotional.Documentation objectives:
1) creating historical records of all information pertaining to the groups, the musical works and the songs that are (or have been) a part of alternative music (see Alternative music), from the 1960’s until today, as well as, related updates;
2) creating a fully catalogued musical archive of all the songs produced or performed, in all their versions and digitally re-mastering the works to keep them safe and usable in the future.
3) creating a multi-media archive pertaining to the cultural and socio-political activity related to the alternative music phenomenon. Collecting, duplicating, cataloguing and filing on computer all documentation useful to reconstruct the historical phases, the idealistic and/or moralistic motivations, as well as, the cultural environment which contributed to the rise and growth of the movement. To this end, press reports, pictures, eyewitnesses accounts, posters, flyers, radio recordings, publications, catalogues, videos or anything else that is found which specifically refers to the movement.
Promotional objectives:
1) promoting and organizing cultural activities and/or public events to foster the spread of alternative music and contribute to building a community awareness of the movement;
2) setting up scholarships and/or music awards to encourage emerging singers in this specific area;
3) promoting alternative music by making material collected by private parties, groups, associations or other public or private libraries available for the enjoyment of all;
4) supporting the future development of the activities new, as well as, old alternative music groups.

Collection and multimedia cataloguing of the material started in 1998 following a meticulous analysis of the phenomenon (that first led to the publication of a paper catalogue) and after following up with a voluminous technical management project that was presented to the Lombardy government. The project was approved and partially funded by the Lombardy government in 1999 as the result of a regional law that encouraged the establishment of multimedia archives and libraries.

For the past two years, all the original professional Italian alternative music releases have been collected, catalogued, re-mastered and filed in the association’s offices at via Teodosio in Milan. Likewise for amateur concert recordings. Simultaneously, the search for alternative related musical works went on especially Oi music – (see Historical overview) foreign versions of alternative music, identity rock and Oi music.

Data are entered into a computer running multimedia archival management software developed exclusively for the Lorien Association by Antonio Masina’s company, Alphard. Besides containing all of the information about alternative music and the song lyrics, this also allows users to listen to about 3,500 songs in mp3 format, as well as, to browse over a gallery of 3,600 pictures which have been so far digitalized.

Despite numerous appeals to members, supporters and politicians, and despite the application for funding to implement a necessary technological upgrade made to the Lombardy government, we didn’t receive a single reply after the death of Marzio Tremaglia. Consequently, the Lorien Association was forced to halt its activities and to move from its offices at via Teodosio in 2001.

At the moment, the entire library (original MCs, EPs, LPs, CDs and VHS, live-recordings of concerts, press reports, song books, posters and historical material, as well as 360 CDs of the re-mastered original releases and, of course, the computer are housed at the Excalibur Agency in Milan (viewing by appointment only) which has kindly accepted to host the association free of charge.

524 pieces of audio material are contained in the Lorien library (last update March 2001) and are subdivided as follows:
Professional Italian releases (on various musical media): 298
Concert recordings: 96
Various recordings: 35
Foreign releases: 95

The web site you are visiting is the fruit of the passionate commitment and professional experience of the vice-president of the Lorien Association, Antonio Masina and his company Alphard in Milan, assisted by Aurelio Atzori, who, besides being an html developer, is also a singer in the alternative music group, Indole.

Through this site the Lorien Association intends to inaugurate a new phase of activity with the hope that making all of the work done up to now available on line to the members (especially all of the songs that constitute the history of alternative music) will allow us to raise the funds necessary to implement the site and resume the work of collecting and cataloguing alternative music.

There is still a lot to be done, for example making the videos available on line and this is why we turn to all of you reading this for help, not just economically, but also by offering your work and your technical know how.

The Lorien Association is also available to organize conferences on the history of alternative music, presentations of its library (by means of computer screening) or promotional concerts of alternative music.

You can contact the Association by e-mail at lorien@lorien.it, or the President of the Association, Guido Giraudo at guidogiraudo@libero.it

www.lorien.it