Feature: Armonica [Interview]

Armonica is a duo formed by Andrea and Salvatore. They are two opposite personalities, with different interests and prospects; so different one from the other, they become complementary in the Music. They can be the new interpreters of the comedy “The Odd Couple”, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Salvatore loves fashion and life connected to it. If in a full room there’s Salvatore, he definitely cannot pass unnoticed.He loves gym and aesthetic care; passionate and collectors of POPart artists. He is a kind of Juventus ‘hooligan’, he watches every game. He is a social network’s expert and all its dynamics. Andrea has technology interests, design and every form of art. He lives mainly in his studio; in addition to play keyboard and turn potentiometers, he enjoys doing graphic design and learning new software. His natural predisposition is to create; he loves traveling to observe the architecture and characteristics of the countries he visits - he faces any kind of evolution with curiosity, he always has thirst for charm. They’re like ebony and ivory in a piano, always search for the best chord for the moment they live.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to Progressive Astronaut. Can you tell us where in the world you are right now and a little about how life has been for you over the past 6 months?

Andrea: Thanks to you guys for this interview and for your role in the music scene. At the moment we’re back in Italy, Salvatore in Milan and me (Andrea) in Riccione. It has been an unreal spring/summer, like slowing down from 300 km/h to 0 km/h in one second. The first period was pretty traumatic, with every gig cancelled and the lockdown. Such radical changes have consequence are both positive and negative. To me, the positive consequence in this period has been the verb “to listen”. We have taken back time to listen carefully to ourselves, the ones we love and of course to music. Sometimes, we don’t realise how much we can get lost or distracted with the daily grind of contemporary society. The everyday in the lock-down period didn’t change a lot – that’s because I spent most of my time in studio working on music. I focused on making music and searching out new sounds and scenes.

We understand the two of you met as DJs at the Cocorico club in Rimini? Can you tell us a liGle about your time at what is one of Italy’s most famous venues?

Salvatore: We met at Cocoricò in Riccione when we were residents there. At the beginning it was only a b2b and then we built our Armonica Project from there. Cocoricò has been our launching point – we love that place and we hope to play again in Cocoricò after this not-so-good year.

Your latest release sees you pairing up with another duo, in the shape of L.A.’s Dear Humans. How did this collaboration come about, and how did you go about recording together?

Andrea: We met Dear Humans during a remix we did for MoBlack entitled “Kidogo (Armonica remix)”. The way they arrange tracks and melodies really resonates with us - so it has been easy for us to work with them on the same level. I love Alex Who?’s voice, we asked her to sing a melody on our instrumental track - when the vocal stems arrived, everything was perfect. Later they proposes to us a new Dear Humans Original and we made a remix of it. This new EP will be release on Connected on the 9th of October - Armonica meets Dear Humans – Music + Me EP.

You’ve done some great remixes in the past for the likes of Anarcrusan, Re.You and Dele Sosimi, do you enjoy the remix process in a way that is different to working your own productions.

Salvatore: Anarcrusan’s “In My Mind” remix wasn’t a real remix - as Andrea was Anarcrusan himself so we did more like a rework, a new rework of a big classic with the Yoshitoshi original Label. We worked with Dele Sosimi in the Afro house genre for the second time in summer 2019; Cubafro has been a great remix with two big Artists. When we make remixes, we change something to empathise with the original artist and, at the same time, make our own imprint.

In the studio, how do the two of you break down your roles, do you have different strengths and skills would you say?

Andrea: The music studio is my natural habitat. I like to immerse myself deeply in music everydayand I love to study everything that could help compose music – from analog synthesizers to digital softwares. I always try to find different ways to express the creativity. Armonica is a project with different roles, the inspiration comes from our experience. Translating the experience in music is my passion and natural inclination.

You’ve obviously travelled a fair bit as DJs, what have been your personal highlights in terms of cities and clubs?

Salvatore: We travelled a lot over the last three years - every city and country has their own charm. If I have to choose my favourites, they would be: Watergate in Berlin, The Block in Tel Aviv, Caletòn in Odessa and Plainvrees in Amsterdam.

What are your favourite 3 albums of all time?

Andrea: It’s a quite difficult quetion. There are a lot of albums that you list in a hypothetical chart. I’ll reply you with the first ones that come to mind – but I know that if I’ll reply in about 10 minutes, I’ll tell you other different three. So right now, I’d say Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark side of the moon’, Radiohead’s ‘Kid A’ and Brian Eno’s ‘Before and aier Science’.

In some ways it’s a hard question to answer right now, but what do you have planned for the year ahead?

We hope that this shitty virus will be defeated because we have to re-take two tours planned in Asia and Greece and of course new gigs; also we have new tunes to release in 2021.

Armonica meets Dear Humans - Music + Me EP is out now via connected: https://smarturl.it/MusicMeEP