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interviste BEAR OF BOMBAY

 

REVISTA THE 13th

Hola Lorenzo, gracias por aceptar realizar esta entrevista y para empezar, me gustaría que menciones cinco canciones que has disfrutado grabar de este álbum.

Para empezar diría "Tears from Space", es uno de los últimos temas que compuse y me aclaró las ideas sobre algunos horizontes sonoros que me gustaría seguir en el futuro. Además, fue muy divertido escuchar las guitarras de Mario Lo Faro de CLUSTERSUN, que enriquecieron mucho el tema. Luego definitivamente "In Dreams". También uno de los últimos grabados y también quizás más enfocado que otros temas. Creo que tiene una letra bastante significativa y fue agradable y divertido trabajar con las guitarras de Sebastian Lugli y la voz de Laura Iacuzio de Rev Rev también en este tema. "Close Your Eyes" es definitivamente un tema que me importa porque tiene un sonido que me cansa menos que otros temas, me parece divertido, incluso tocarlo en vivo. Luego podría decir "Phony Love", me divertí citando ciertos sonidos de los 80 y ensuciándolos con algunas guitarras ligeramente torcidas. Finalmente, "Be Your Blood" es un tema en el que dejo salir mi lado romántico y el placer de trabajar con la melodía. Si tuviera más tiempo, haría un proyecto paralelo compuesto enteramente de temas como ese, muy tranquilo y construido sobre la melodía.

 

Siempre al escuchar tus canciones no puedo evitar pensar en The Beatles y en toda su psicodelica, cuéntanos ¿qué lugar ocupa la banda de Liverpool en tu sonido?
¡Buena pregunta! La verdad es que nunca pensé en los Beatles mientras componía este disco, pero los escuché mucho y me encantó su período más psicodélico, que definitivamente me influyó.
 
Qué diferencias encuentras entre "Something Stranger" del 2021 y éste "PsychoDreamElectroGaze"?
"Something Stranger" fue el primer paso de este proyecto. Inicialmente compuse cuatro temas, sin poder pensar en qué dirección exacta iba a seguir. No me hice ninguna pregunta. Luego, durante el confinamiento, agregué un quinto tema, quizás un poco más conscientemente. El disco fue producido por Lele Battista, quien le dio al EP una cierta impronta, que definitivamente necesitaba un poco porque, como dije, el conjunto no estaba tan enfocado.
"PsychoDreamElectroGaze" desde este punto de vista es definitivamente un paso adelante. Hay una mayor conciencia tanto en la dirección del sonido como en la interpretación vocal. Y hay una mayor homogeneidad, creo.

Te seguimos casi desde la salida de tu debut y te hemos visto en el Festival de pandemia NMER Fest allá por el 2021. Cuéntanos ¿qué has andado haciendo en estos años, hasta la edición del nuevo álbum?
Como ya he dicho, al principio no tenía muy claro qué dirección tomar, porque cuando intentas hacer algo personal sin ninguna referencia concreta, creo que lleva un tiempo conseguir que las cosas salgan bien. Así que me llevó tiempo hacer PsychoDreamElectroGaze. Algunas de las pistas se compusieron dos años antes del lanzamiento de PsychoDreamElectroGaze y también forman parte de un viaje hacia una idea precisa de sonido que lleva tiempo hacerse realidad. Por cierto, en los últimos dos años también he probado mi espectáculo en directo, que actualmente tiene un set en solitario, que tenía que y quería probar en directo, afortunadamente con muy buenos comentarios.

¿En qué momento en la vida de Bear of Bombay llega este álbum?
Creo que he alcanzado un buen nivel de madurez musical, aunque uno nunca deja de madurar.
Durante varios años, entre colaboraciones, he estado intentando encontrar la forma adecuada para un sonido que tenía en mente para mi proyecto. Con Bear Of Bombay siento que he encontrado la forma adecuada que estaba buscando, así que intentaré llevar adelante el proyecto lo mejor que pueda en los próximos años.

Cuéntanos ¿Cuándo nacen las canciones del álbum?
Empecé a escribir material nuevo con calma unos meses después del lanzamiento del primer EP Something Stranger. Me llevó dos años escribir y producir todo el álbum. Desafortunadamente, también tengo otro trabajo y el tiempo disponible no era infinito.
 
Tienes invitados en el álbum. Cuéntanos sobre estás colaboraciones y también si las canciones en la que aparecen ya las escribiste pensando en el invitado o el proceso fue posterior.
Decidí proponer la participación en el disco a bandas invitadas hacia el final del proceso de composición. Las primeras en las que pensamos hacer algo juntos fueron Clustersun, y cuando compuse Tears From Space, el último tema que escribí, ya nos lo habíamos dicho, así que cuando estaba escribiendo el tema pensé que sus guitarras encajarían bien, y dejé espacio para eso. En cambio, In Dreams y A New Wonder ya estaban compuestos cuando pregunté a Rev Rev y The Mystic Morning si querían participar, así que sus partes se añadieron más tarde. Con Sebastian de Rev Rev llevábamos mucho tiempo hablando de hacer algo juntos, así que cuando se presentó la oportunidad lo hicimos con mucho gusto, involucrando también a la cantante de la banda, Laura, en la segunda voz. Le pedí a Davide de Mystic Morning que participara en un tema del disco porque ya habíamos colaborado en el pasado y me ayudó mucho con este proyecto mío, y me alegró que participara en él.

Has lanzado hasta el momento tres videos de este álbum. Cuéntanos sobre ellos y si tienes planeado llanzar otros.
El primer vídeo que salió, "Tears From Space", lo grabó mi amigo Antonello Raggi en mi sala de ensayos. Grabamos con pocos medios, pero con su imaginación creo que logramos hacer un bonito vídeo que combina muy bien con la música. El segundo vídeo, "Close Your Eyes" y el tercero, "Phony Love", los hice yo. En "Close Your Eyes", el vídeo consta de tres tomas separadas de actuaciones de bailarinas burlescas de principios del siglo XX, todas las cuales logran capturar el placer inocente del cuerpo y su movimiento, que es lo que representa la música: la emancipación del pensamiento, cerrar los ojos y dejar que el cuerpo tome el control. En "Phony Love", el vídeo musical describe un amor venenoso como una alucinación monotemática mediante el uso de colores ácidos y efectos agresivos. Un amor aterrador, desagradable, ligado a una mirada de la que anhela escapar, como si estuviera atrapado. Utilicé imágenes sin derechos de autor que luego edité y posproduje en profundidad.

¡Muchas gracias, Lorenzo!
¡Gracias a ustedes!

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PsychoDreamElectroGaze blends different musical genres. Can you talk about the  initial inspiration for this eclectic album and how you decided on the title?  

Actually, the inspiration for this album is the result of a long journey during which, over the past years, I have tried to find the right shape for a sound I had in mind, without there being any precise genre or artist references, but based only on the countless influences of the music I have enjoyed listening to during my years of musical growth. Not having a  precise genre or artist reference, the process of finding the right formula for what I had in  mind was quite long and complex, and I went through other projects first, such as Zivago. On Bear of Bombay’s first ep, Something Stranger, I definitely had less clear ideas about  what precise format to give to my personal sound. With PsychoDreamElectroGaze my path has definitely taken a big step forward and I thought of calling it that to sum up, with a name that also sounded good to me and that also seemed a bit ironic, the mix of genres to which the record refers. It was a bit of a game to me and I think you can hear that there is  also a playful aspect to PsychoDreamElectroGaze.

You’ve described your music as a blend of electronica, dream pop, and more. Can you  walk us through your creative process when merging these diverse genres in your  compositions?

Let’s say my creative process is based on an initial idea, a substantial core that I feel is strong enough to build a song around. This has to be something instinctive and usually not very rational, so there is no initial intent to mention this or that genre, but simply my  various influences surface very naturally. I have never been interested in genre barriers. I have a predominantly rock background but I have always liked electronic music as well. And I’ve always aspired to create something that was as personal as possible, that went  beyond the single genre, with the ambition to anticipate trends, although that may sound very pretentious.

The album features contributions from artists like Mario Lo Faro and Sebastian Lugli. How did these collaborations come about, and what did they bring to the overall sound of  the album?

Clustersun and Rev Rev Rev are bands that are part of the same ‘scene’ as me and although some of them live in other Italian cities, even far from Milan, we are in touch with  each other and support each other. With Clustersun we met in person in Milan at one of  their concerts, we esteem each other and the idea of doing something together  immediately came naturally to us, so when I composed the album I asked them to  participate.  Tears From Space was the last track I composed, when I had already agreed with Mario Lo Faro that he would collaborate on my album. So when I composed the track I purposely left room for his guitar parts, which I imagined would be saturated, enveloping and  reverberated, in perfect Clustersun style, and so it was.

With Rev Rev Rev we’ve been friends for years and we’d been talking about doing  something together for quite some time, so as soon as the opportunity arose we did it.

We met with Sebastian in Milan when he came here to spend a weekend. I had just  finished producing the tracks for the record but we thought that in In Dreams there would  be some of his guitar interventions well, according to his style, although the song is quite  different from the genre of Rev Rev Rev. He tried to put in some of his somewhat jangle and somewhat dissonant guitars and the experiment I would say succeeded very well and  it was inspiring to add this influence of his to the song, as well as the voice of Laura  Iacuzio, who joined later as a second voice in some parts of the song.

Single Tears From Space: This track features guitar work by Mario Lo Faro. What  inspired the song, and how did Mario’s style influence its final sound?

I call Tears from Space “a ‘trip’ in kraut sauce”, poised between electronica and  psychedelia, between melody and sonic experimentation.” To give the track the three dimensional character I had in mind it needed walls of shoegaze/post punk guitars just like in Mario’s style, whom I asked to work on the track when it was already complete with all  its other parts

For the singles Tears From Space, Close Your Eyes, and Phony Love, what were the  concepts behind their respective music videos, and how do they complement the songs?

The music video of Tears From Space was created by Milanese visual artist Antonello  Raggi. He attempts to visually depict the syncopated movement that the music narrates,  as if we were in a hypnotic search for something, that is both “outside” and “inside.”  Antonello has used a technique that dates back to the 1980s of “video feedback and light  art performance.” I think we managed to make a nice video that goes very well with the  music. Close Your Eyes is about the innocence of the body, the delight of leaving the comfort  zone and learning about the movements and expectations of desire. The video consists of  three distinct takes of early twentieth-century burlesque dancers’ performances, all of  which succeed in capturing the innocent delight of the body and its movement, which is  what the music represents: the emancipation of thought, closing the eyes and being  carried away by the body. In Phony Love the music video depicts, as well as the lyrics of the song, a poisonous  love as a monothematic hallucination through the use of acid colors and aggressive  effects. A frightening, unpleasant love, tied to a gaze from which it longs to escape, as if  trapped. The video’s main character recalls Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, a lovely  being on the boundary between the living and the dead who fascinates, ensnares, and  terrorizes.

How do you feel your sound has evolved from your first EP Something Stranger to PsychoDreamElectroGaze?

Something Stranger was the first step in this project. I had initially composed four tracks,  without being able to think in what precise direction I was going. I didn’t ask myself any  questions. The record was then produced by Lele Battista, who gave the ep a certain  imprint, which I definitely needed a bit because, as I said, the whole thing wasn’t so much  in focus. PsychoDreamElectroGaze from this point of view is definitely a step forward. There is a greater awareness both in the direction of sound taken and in the vocal  interpretation. And there is a greater homogeneity, I think.

Being the main producer of your album, what were some of the biggest challenges you  faced during the production process, and how did you overcome them?

Well, producing almost completely the record by myself was not easy. Initially I was thinking of relying on a producer, but then I realized that to achieve what I had in mind, which I had pretty clear in my head this time, I could only self-produce. And so it took me  about two years to prepare this album, between composition and production. There was also an additional production phase in the recording studio with my friend Francesco Campanozzi, who helped me to finalize the structures of the tracks and produce the drum  machine parts better.

You’ve cited musical influences from the past few decades. Can you share specific  artists or albums from these eras that have significantly impacted your musical style?

New Order, The Fad Gadget and generally the first publications of Mute Records,  Depeche Mode, Visage, Neu!, Psychedelic Furs, Human League, current LCD  Soundsystem, Vacant Lots, Nation of Language, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, The Smile,  Jagajazzist, the first things of Caribou, but also Sonic Youth, Deus, Dinosaur Jr, Sam  Prekop, Notwist, Plaid, Stone Roses, The Cure, Spiritualized, Stereolab and many others  that I can’t think of now.

What role did James Aparicio play in the mixing and mastering of the album, and how  did his expertise influence the final sound?

James’ role was important because he better defined the direction of the sound just as I  had in mind. In fact, when I produced the record I did it already thinking that he would then  mix it. And that was very important because he focused all my work, precisely in the sound direction that I had envisioned listening to some of James’ earlier work. I needed someone  to emphasize certain aspects of my sound.

With PsychoDreamElectroGaze now complete, what are your plans for future  projects? Are there new directions or styles you’re interested in exploring?

I hope to play live as much as possible. There will be some artists I will definitely collaborate with on remixes of some of my tracks, also And I’m already looking forward to  composing a new album. Let’s say that with PsychoDreamElectroGaze I opened up  several possible paths of sound, we’ll see which one will be the most fascinating to beat in my near future!

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