fbpx
parallax background
 

'Endtroducing'

Carlo Giustini and his Tutto Quadra EP


Carlo Giustini is the protagonist of the next release on the Apparel Tronic catalogue. We asked a few questions to the man himself to get to know a bit more about him and his music!

-Hi Carlo! First of all, how are you?

Hi! I’m pretty good and at peace, even though we’re facing difficult times I’m trying to look at the sunny side… it’s hidden, but I know it’s there.

-Let’s start from the early days: how did you fall in love with music?

It actually started when I was really young… I bought my first cassette tape when I was 8 (The Fat of the Land by Prodigy… we miss you Keith!!!) and started making mixtapes for friends and family that same year. Then I started playing drums when I was 11, formed my first garage band and kept on playing guitars and vocals in bands until my 20’s. I also kept up with my electronic solo side projects playing around with FL Studio.

-Can you please introduce to us your forthcoming EP on Apparel Tronic, ’Tutto Quadra’, from a personal POV; what does it mean to you?

I actually think is my best work so far. I’ve been facing some doubts about keeping on making music, I sometimes feel kind of old and done with it, but then you guys asked me for some tracks… I actually had some unfinished material I had been working on recently and decided to put it together as an album. Tutto Quadra means ‘it fits’ and that’s what I thought when I first listened to the tracks as a whole. There are different styles of Ambient, New Age, sampled Jazz and Drone elements that really fit together. This album should be played as background music, from start to finish, at low volume… listening to it at night might be the best environment.

-The whole record really sounds like a cohesive, instinctive and heartfelt composition: take us through the creative process behind the five tracks.

I usually start with no specific ideas… grabbing a synth or sampler, then record a first layer, usually a drone. Then I keep on adding melodic layers, field recordings and other found sounds until the track fits and makes sense. It’s all very improvised and straight forward, usually what you hear is all first takes. I also like to keep all of those little mistakes which make the work more interesting for the trained ears. Another important thing is to keep my windows open during recording, catching all of those environmental sounds I don’t want to miss. This music is very niche, you obviously won’t play it on a night out with friends and the tracks are very intimate and are closer to a prayer, or shamanic music. I also think this is a solitary expression of music, best enjoyed by yourself, trying to give to it your personal interpretation.

-Tell us which are you main musical influences.

There are many genres and influences in my musical compositions: Norwegian Black Metal bands like Mayhem, Darkthrone and Burzum, Japanese ambient like Midori Takada, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Jazz maestros like Coltrane and Chet Baker and then Autechre and early ambient by Aphex Twin. Italian giants like Nino Rota (all Fellini’s OST compositions), Armando Trovajoli and Gigi Masin also play a massive part in my current productions. Another contemporary artist who’s a great source of inspiration for me is Andrea Porcu aka Music For Sleep… I think he’s one of the most talented fellow musicians in today’s modern Ambient scene.

-Lastly, could you please take a second to reflect on the current situation? How the pandemic affected your work as a musician, in a positive or negative way?

I don’t know if it actually affected my music. Probably not because what I do as Carlo Giustini have always been introspective, best enjoyed locked up at home, alone.

'Endtroducing'

Carlo Giustini and his Tutto Quadra EP


Carlo Giustini is the protagonist of the next release on the Apparel Tronic catalogue. We asked a few questions to the man himself to get to know a bit more about him and his music!

-Hi Carlo! First of all, how are you?

Hi! I’m pretty good and at peace, even though we’re facing difficult times I’m trying to look at the sunny side… it’s hidden, but I know it’s there.

-Let’s start from the early days: how did you fall in love with music?

It actually started when I was really young… I bought my first cassette tape when I was 8 (The Fat of the Land by Prodigy… we miss you Keith!!!) and started making mixtapes for friends and family that same year. Then I started playing drums when I was 11, formed my first garage band and kept on playing guitars and vocals in bands until my 20’s. I also kept up with my electronic solo side projects playing around with FL Studio.

-Can you please introduce to us your forthcoming EP on Apparel Tronic, ’Tutto Quadra’, from a personal POV; what does it mean to you?

I actually think is my best work so far. I’ve been facing some doubts about keeping on making music, I sometimes feel kind of old and done with it, but then you guys asked me for some tracks… I actually had some unfinished material I had been working on recently and decided to put it together as an album. Tutto Quadra means ‘it fits’ and that’s what I thought when I first listened to the tracks as a whole. There are different styles of Ambient, New Age, sampled Jazz and Drone elements that really fit together. This album should be played as background music, from start to finish, at low volume… listening to it at night might be the best environment.

-The whole record really sounds like a cohesive, instinctive and heartfelt composition: take us through the creative process behind the five tracks.

I usually start with no specific ideas… grabbing a synth or sampler, then record a first layer, usually a drone. Then I keep on adding melodic layers, field recordings and other found sounds until the track fits and makes sense. It’s all very improvised and straight forward, usually what you hear is all first takes. I also like to keep all of those little mistakes which make the work more interesting for the trained ears. Another important thing is to keep my windows open during recording, catching all of those environmental sounds I don’t want to miss. This music is very niche, you obviously won’t play it on a night out with friends and the tracks are very intimate and are closer to a prayer, or shamanic music. I also think this is a solitary expression of music, best enjoyed by yourself, trying to give to it your personal interpretation.

-Tell us which are you main musical influences.

There are many genres and influences in my musical compositions: Norwegian Black Metal bands like Mayhem, Darkthrone and Burzum, Japanese ambient like Midori Takada, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Jazz maestros like Coltrane and Chet Baker and then Autechre and early ambient by Aphex Twin. Italian giants like Nino Rota (all Fellini’s OST compositions), Armando Trovajoli and Gigi Masin also play a massive part in my current productions. Another contemporary artist who’s a great source of inspiration for me is Andrea Porcu aka Music For Sleep… I think he’s one of the most talented fellow musicians in today’s modern Ambient scene.

-Lastly, could you please take a second to reflect on the current situation? How the pandemic affected your work as a musician, in a positive or negative way?

I don’t know if it actually affected my music. Probably not because what I do as Carlo Giustini have always been introspective, best enjoyed locked up at home, alone.

Here are three tracks that, maybe subconsciously, could have had an influence on the EP:
parallax background