Da Captain Trips | Interview | New Album, ‘Maths Of The Elements’
Five years after Da Captain Trips’ album ‘Adventures In The Upside Down’, the band launched an album focused on nature. ‘Maths Of The Elements’ is a continuation of their psychedelic voyages.
Each track wants to drive the listener to immerse themselves in a slow journey of awareness on the elements of nature. The songs breathe and develop slowly, are more dilated and improvised than ‘Adventures In The Upside Down’. Each Da Captain Trips album is different from the previous one. The current line-up changes include Paolo “Apollo” Negri on keyboards.
“This album is dedicated to nature”
‘Maths of the Elements’ feels like a new chapter in your band with the addition of keyboard player Paolo “Apollo” Negri. What was the energy in the studio?
Riccardo “Cavitos” Cavicchia: Each record is always a new chapter for us and Paolo is a very talented musician but first of all is a friend. I was talking with him in the spring of 2019 about how after so many years we were back to being a trio and he simply proposed himself to replace our keyboard player Bachis. It was so simple and natural to work with him on the new songs. He was able to find the perfect sound in a couple of minutes. In the studio we always leave some parts of the songs free to improvise or free to change. Paolo added, in addition to synthesizers, some totally improvised piano, Fender Rhoads and Hammond parts on the songs and was very cool, exactly what we wanted him to do but without explaining anything. In the studio, we always record all together and normally the first take is ok. Personally I am always a bit stressed when I have to record in a studio, because it is not my natural habitat but this time a couple of hours were enough to acclimate my mind because the energy was always positive.
It’s been a difficult two years, especially for Italy. How are you coping as musicians? Are you planning to play some shows to support the new album?
It was hard, my city was hit a lot by the virus. It was a nightmare because our freedom was compromised for the first time. We were not able to meet for many months because we live in different regions, but except Paolo, we are not professional musicians. I personally developed a solo project under the name of Pragmatic Man. It’s me alone experimenting with sounds. You can find some tracks on SoundCloud. We have already played three shows for the release party of the album, now we will play at the Desert Fox Fest VI in my hometown Piacenza and we have a mini UK tour at the end of July with Acid Rooster and some shows in Germany in December.
Is there a certain concept behind your latest album, a story you were trying to tell?
This album is dedicated to nature, its elements and the slow growth of everything. This is the concept we focused on in the writing process. We wanted a more earthly sound, so we got help from our friend Max Araldi (aka Hi Fi Panorama) to add some field recordings between songs and the album was complete.
Was it difficult to get all the material together? Where did you record it?
We should have recorded this album in March 2020 but the world has stopped as you well know so we recorded in June 2021 eventually. From March 2020 to June 2021 the songs changed naturally on their own because we couldn’t practice most of the time. We chose The Shelter Recording Studio close to Milan, which is the studio of Matteo Tovaglieri, the sound engineer who mixed ‘Adventures in the Upside Down’, ‘Improvisations Vol.1’ and ‘Live at Immerhin’. It’s very important for us to feel like home when we are in the studio and Matteo knows us very well, he is one of us.
“The shaman who tries to interpret and analyse the surrounding nature”
I love the artwork…
We have commissioned the graphics to our friend Kabuto. We explained the concept to him and he drew this fantastic artwork. The central figure represents the shaman/scientist who tries to interpret and analyse the surrounding nature. But, being part of nature itself, it cries because understanding is both touching and disturbing. The design is completed by the four ancient symbols of the elements, air, water, fire and earth. We also add a special UV mask on the cover that lets you get lost into contrasts.
What’s your creative process when it comes to songwriting?
As I said above, we try to focus on the concept in the writing process. In the last two albums we have composed the music thinking on a concept, this is a very interesting way to make music, because it pushes you to experiment and helps you to visualize what you are playing. Often we start from a guitar idea and then we jam a lot on it. We record every practice in multitrack and most of the time, the song comes up jamming or we select the best ideas by listening to the improvisations. We don’t practice very often but we have thousands of hours of recordings! On this album, thanks to the lockdown, we also did a home recording (with very basic devices) of almost all the songs. We did some acoustic versions too! This helped to develop some songs in a very different way than usual.
Your band has been active for over 13 years, would you like to elaborate on the formation of the band and discuss some of the early albums like, ‘Anechoic Chamber Outcomes I’, ‘In The Beginning…’
We were friends before being a band and we used to go to festivals like Roadburn, DesertFest and had fun together drinking tons of beers listening to hours and hours of concerts. One time in the Summer of 2009, we decided to make a jam on a sunny Saturday afternoon and that was the beginning. As our bio says, “we started to jam and only hunger could stop us”. It was so cool that day, I can remember very well the super free atmosphere. I think we started playing what would become the song ‘Leaving the Mainland’. I’m a huge fan of Stephen King. I was reading the seven books of the Dark Tower saga in that period when I saw the name of the super flu “Captain Trips” that killed almost all the humanity and I thought “this is the name of the band”, than we added “Da” like a restaurant, you know we are Italian and this band was our psychedelic restaurant! We recorded, mixed and mastered the first EP ‘Aljamed’ in one day and we started to play everywhere. From there we never stopped to experiment, in fact every record is different to the other because we change and our music, that is truly emotional music, changes with us. First two records are very far from the Captains of today but I still love them, it’s a process that brought us here in 2022.
Isn’t it amazing how many views on YouTube have ‘Adventures In The Upside Down’?
Yes it’s incredible! Now we have 190000 views and 213 comments (that I love to read). We are a DIY band so I really don’t know how it is possible… Maybe the algorithm worked right this time or maybe it was the music the people wanted to listen to at that particular moment…I don’t know but I’m very proud of it. ‘Adventures on the Upside Down’ has been sold out for a lot of years.
What do you recall from its recording sessions?
We booked the studio for three days as usual and I remember that I brought all my analog delays (tape delay and Echorec) to record! I remember that we played ‘Mother Earth’ the first time there and it is one of my favourite songs from that album.
Are any of you involved in any other bands or do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?
I also play in the bands:
– Kubri, a sort of jazz rock psych very mellow and quiet.
– The Old Mill Free Ensemble, a totally improvised space rock music with members of Red Sun, La Morte viene dallo Spazio and Ax and Sunhair and Space Invaders.
– Pragmatic Man, my super solo project.
Paolo plays in G.O.L.E.M., a super retro prog band without guitars and the Link Quartet. Tommy plays punk in the band Ex Monroe, Peppo can only play with Da Captain Trips.
Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?
The albums that have changed my view on how to create music are with no doubt some albums from German psychedelic era (they have their own personal idea of psychedelia) like Ash Ra Tempel and complete Manuel Göttsching discography, Faust, Can, Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. About new stuff, I’m a huge Loop fan and the last album ‘Sonancy’ (first since 1990) is stunning! I also loved the last Big Thief, Castel Sotterra releases, 10000 Russos, Lay Llamas and too many to mention.
Thank you for taking your time. Last word is yours.
We hope to come and play in Slovenia soon, so we can drink a beer together. Thanks for the support Klemen
Klemen Breznikar
Da Captain Trips Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
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