Great Saunites - The psychedelia of the neighbors

A chat with Marcello and Angelo, the duo behind Great Saunites, exploring their origins, their varied way of composing, their suite-form approach, and late historic psychedelia. And their new digital distribution.

Hi guys and welcome to our webzine. When exactly does your story begin?

Marcello: The Great Saunites was born in 2008, I think it was September of that year.

How did you meet, and what premises - if any - did you set before starting to play and record together?

M.: Actually we had already played together, in Linda Gruber. It's a fairly classic story: we were both disillusioned by how our respective previous musical experiences had ended, and let's say that's when the idea came up to try something different and put ourselves on the line. On the verge of turning 30, we felt younger than we did at 20, and "settling down" wasn't even on the table. Premises? Commitment to carrying the project forward and no personal ambition - you could say we embraced the concept of the band in its truest sense.

Tell me, more specifically, how your interplay came about.

M.: There have always been musical affinities between us; as a band, our story is inevitably marked by Layola's (nickname of Angelo Bignamini, ed.) decision to switch from guitar to drums. The musical interaction that resulted was completely original, the fruit of rehearsal-room jams fuelled by an almost primitive enthusiasm.

The psychedelic mood that sets you apart, sometimes rock-solid and compact, sometimes highly variable and deconstructed, developed spontaneously out of your interactions, or did you plan it from the start?

M.: "Planned" is a big word, but I can say with certainty that in our minds The Great Saunites has always been a project that shouldn't be immediate: we've always tried to create something that would reach the listener in a non-linear way, something that demanded effort. From that point of view, I can say we planned a path that fits within the concept of psychedelia; the rest was done spontaneously by the alchemy that formed between the bass and drums.

You mentioned "Layola" earlier: on your second album "Delay Jesus" you rename yourselves, or rather hide your identities, behind nicknames like Leonard Kandur Layola and Atros Al D. Why these choices? What do they mean?

M.: We use those two nicknames on all our records, but I'd be lying if I told you there's some sophisticated reasoning behind it. In reality, for us it's a sort of slightly grotesque habit, and it probably comes from the fact that seeing our real names in print would risk giving us a tone and an identity that we definitely feel we don't deserve.

You have a clear leaning toward long tracks, though shorter experiments aren't lacking either. Is this, then, your ideal format?

M.: We've written several long-form pieces; in particular, ours has been a kind of suite trilogy. "Isaiah", "Delay Jesus '68" and "The Ivy" are three of the tracks we're proudest of and that we feel represent us fully, even though each had a completely different gestation from the others. More generally, the long track lets us linger on that sense of "estrangement" that means so much to us, letting the mood of the piece shift completely over its whole length, without having to give up the hypnotic repetition of riff and rhythm, which is what gives us pleasure. But it's also there for the listener, to decide whether to walk away or let themselves be carried along with us.

It's precisely the lengthy "The Ivy", the suite that gives its title to your latest album, that stands as your peak, including in terms of duration. How did you conceive it? How did you shape its features, at once so complex and so relentless?

M.: First of all, thank you - we too feel it might be a kind of milestone for the band. "The Ivy" is a track into which all our music and our musical passion flows. As for how it came about, it all started from the idea of a sound collage... we're both huge fans of Faust, and with "The Ivy" we wanted to move in that direction: a blend of rock-solid riffs and more free-form parts. This track also marks, for us, a massive return to the studio-arrangement phase, an aspect we had somewhat set aside after the experiment we did with the track "Isaiah" on our first album.

On the first "TGS", entirely self-produced, what stands out - among other things - is precisely the long, dissonant interlude in "Isaiah". Where did that come from?

M.: It was entirely improvised in the studio over a bass track that, as we originally intended it, was meant to be a somewhat noisy, frayed digression. The guitar with its Indian-raga mood and the keyboards were completely improvised on the spot, and unwittingly gave the track a direction opposite to the one we had in mind. I don't think we'll ever manage to redo "Isaiah" the way it turned out on that recording. It's definitely the best track we've ever written.

On "Delay Jesus" you dropped vocals altogether. Do you see them as an extra that isn't really essential, or did your sound simply head in different directions with that record?

M.: Vocals haven't been set aside completely, if you consider that "The Ivy" has some short vocal interludes, and that on the split with Lucifer Big Band (2012, ed.) there's a track, "Black City", built around singing. For us, voice can be just as distinctive as the instruments, but it has to fully convince us and, above all, be spontaneous; in that sense, the clearest example of what satisfied us most was the collaboration with Welles (the nickname of the vocalist on our debut album) on our first album "TGS".

On "Delay Jesus", but even more so on "The Ivy", there's a long track that takes up an entire side. You're carrying on the classic modus operandi of late psychedelia we already mentioned, but also, and above all, that of the golden age of progressive rock. How do you relate to prog?

M.: Actually, we haven't been listening to that much prog lately, and maybe we never really did. We're huge King Crimson fans, but the bands we tend to reference in that area are probably the Italian ones - I'd mention Area, Balletto di Bronzo, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Osanna, etc.

Angelo, your solo projects: Billy Torello and especially Lucifer Big Band. Do you think they influence Great Saunites in any way? Or maybe Great Saunites is actually a synthesis of these solo projects of yours?

Angelo: I don't think there's a common thread running through Great Saunites and my other musical projects. When I'm Billy Torello I'm expressing a strong bond with an instrument other than drums, while Lucifer Big Band is an electronic improvisation project that has little in common with the Saunites' sound, aside from a certain kraut influence running through both bands. I like to think of it as three different individuals emerging from one complex personality.

In all three albums your sound is shaped by bass and drums, though there's certainly no shortage of new sounds, acoustic as much as fully electronic. Have you ever thought about expanding the lineup with other musicians?

Marcello: We've definitely thought about it, but so far the idea that the two-piece format was perfect has always prevailed. Our intention is to keep bass and drums at the forefront of Saunites, but a third member could certainly help us develop certain ideas we've had in the studio, which we could only partly recreate live. In that sense, the use of loops and audio samples has been a huge help to us so far.

The new way of distributing music via Bandcamp: basically your entire discography is available as a digital download (though "The Ivy" was first released on a beautiful vinyl edition, so you're clearly not disowning the origins of recorded music). Is this a kind of full vote of confidence in the future of distribution?

M.: Well put - all our albums are available for download. We're certainly not turning our backs on physical formats, but at the same time we're in favor of any alternative form of music distribution, as long as it allows bands and labels to be fairly compensated for their efforts, which are never marginal.

Let's try to find the moral of the story. Through a patchwork of past styles and a revival of psychedelia, your aesthetic sits very much on the border - not just stylistically, but also, consistently, in terms of stylization and essentiality of sound. Do you recognize yourselves in that?

M.: I'd say yes! The minimal aspect and the borderline territory our music occupies are undeniable. Given that I think it's impossible to create anything in music that could truly be called new, the attempt to personally reinterpret something that has inevitably been absorbed through repeated, passionate listening is the most dignified thing a musician can hope to achieve.

A big thank you from all of us here, talk soon!

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