Savana Funk | Interview | New Album: ‘Tindouf’
‘Tindouf’ is Savana Funk’s visionary new album. Eight tracks of powerful and psychedelic grooves recorded live on analog tape.
The original line-up of Aldo Betto on guitar, Blake C. S. Franchetto on bass, and Youssef Ait Bouazza on drums has now expanded to a quartet adding Nicola Peruch on keyboards. The world-renowned trombonist Gianluca Petrella from Bari appears on one of the tracks, an acquaintance made by Savana Funk at the ‘Jova Beach Party’ where the band left its mark during their live performances which included jams with Jovanotti in front of tens of thousands of people. Max Castlunger, a percussionist from South Tyrol, has already been a guest on the band’s first album. Here, he is present on nearly every track, contributing greatly to the album’s soundscape. Furthermore, Elena Majoni is the violinist on the title track.
Tindouf is a city in Algeria that hosts a major refugee camp in the Hammada plain aka the “Devil’s garden”, so-called due to its inhospitable climate, extreme heat, and sandstorms. Savana Funk by their very nature feel close to issues regarding multiculturalism and immigration. The band tries to describe, through music, the journey, the dream, the palpitation, the fear, the hope, and the madness that dwells inside these nomadic human beings.
“We pour into our music everything that touches us”
You completely blew my mind with ‘Tindouf’. What was the creating process like for this album?
We chose to record the quartet playing live in the studio together directly onto analog tape, on a 16 track Telefunken with Argentini mixer. The studio, which goes by the name of “L’amor mio non muore”, seemed to us to have the perfect setting to capture our spontaneous live sound. There was a post-production phase in which we added some overdubs, but the majority of what you hear is the quartet playing live in the recording room of Roberto Villa and Daniele Marzi.
You decided to enrich your sound with adding Nicola Peruch on keyboards.
Adding Nicola to the band was incredibly natural. He has collaborated with us since the first of our four albums (‘Musica Analoga’, ‘Savana Funk’, ‘Bring in the New’, ‘Tindouf’), and from the third album he has contributed to the songwriting as well. On our latest album ‘Tindouf’ he has participated in all aspects of the creative process. And you can hear it. We feel very lucky to have a top player like him in our lineup, he’s an incredible musician.
Then there’s a collaboration with the world-renowned trombonist Gianluca Petrella from Bari. Who else is part of the album?
Gianluca Petrella contributed his amazing trombone sound on the 7th track, ‘Keta Diva’. In addition we have the violin and vocal parts of Elena Majoni on the title track and the percussion layering by our ladino collaborator Max Castlunger on nearly the whole album. His contribution was an integral part to getting the polyrhythmic element of the African strain across, an element that we we felt necessary to give an extra emphasis to throughout the whole work.
“We give ourselves long periods of time to experiment each idea in different ways”
How do you usually approach music making? Is your approach to laying down music a building block process or are you more of a jam band?
We compose in different ways, like we mentioned in our first answer. However, what is common to our process is that we give ourselves long periods of time to experiment each idea in different ways and with different solutions. We like to give our attention to all details and to let some tunes just sit still for a while, so that with fresh ears we can then judge the compositions more objectively. We might then rearrange some sections, keep some parts the same but change the sound of the guitar, drums, bass. In brief, we make sure that any detail that can make the difference be given care and attention.
What are some of the most important players that influenced your own style and what in particular did they employ in their playing that you liked?
A phrase by Sun Ra comes to mind: “I am influenced by everything that I experience”. We pour into our music everything that touches us, be it music, musicians we have loved, books that we have read (the track ‘The Invisible Man’ is a direct reference to Ralph Ellison’s masterpiece), the people that we interact with and have long conversations with long into the night, the pains and the joys that we experience with loved ones. It all goes into the pot and comes out as Savana Funk.
Having said that, if we have to name-drop, surely we would have to consider many artists. We love black music in its various manifestations, from blues to funk, from jazz to African music. James Brown, Al Green, Alifarka Tourê, Tower of Power, Ambolley, Miles Davis, Ahmad Jamal but also the Doors, The Chemical Brothers… the list is endless. Aldo feels a certain affinity also to the British scene, British pop and blues like Radiohead, Eric Clapton, Kula Shaker, Hendrix, Santana. Blake loves jazz and classical music ranging from Bach and his counterpoint to Mahler and Stravinsky’s use of dissonance, from Louis Armstrong to Wayne Shorter and Coltrane. Youssef really digs Jeff Buckley’s lyricism, Steve Gadd’s drumming, gnawa music and hip-hop beats and Nicola is an avid fan of Weather Report and Herbie Hancock.
“What it means to be human”
Tindouf is a city in Algeria that hosts a major refugee camp in the Hammada plain aka the “Devil’s garden”. Please elaborate on the concept behind the album.
By our very nature we feel close to issues regarding multiculturalism and immigration; included on our second album entitled ‘Savana Funk’ is a tune called ‘Calais Blues’, which references Calais, another hotspot border zone. On that track we tried to describe through music the journey, the dream, the palpitation, the fear, the hope and the madness that dwells inside these nomadic human beings. With this new release we, Savana Funk as a band, are asking our audiences not to look the other away, to become aware of the historical significance of these migrations, to keep focus on what it means to be human and the consequent right that we all have to search for a better future, and to open up and feel close to other human beings from all parts of the world as our brothers.
How would you compare your latest album with the previous releases?
Firstly, it is our most compact and coherent work to date. We specifically wanted a common thread to run throughout all the tunes, both musically and logically. The analog live recording process helped us greatly in achieving this and in capturing our original sound. In the previous albums our sound wasn’t absent of course, but we experimented more in different musical directions. It’s difficult to compare albums, like comparing you children. Each one can be fully understood only if you give it your full attention without comparisons.
Are any of you involved in any other bands or do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?
Aldo (guitarist) has recently contributed his guitar parts to the Mina/Celentano album and is actively involved with the promotion of culture and music on a national level, bringing together musicians and artists in various ways, through jam sessions which has lead for 20 years in Veneto (region in Italy that hosts the cities of Venice and Treviso) and for the last 10 in Bologna. Blake (bass) is currently collaborating with Gianluca Petrella in various projects (Cosmic Renaissance, Petrella-Mirra) and keeps an open musical dialogue with various jazz musicians throughout Italy. Youssef is one of the most respected drummers in his region (Romagna) and has contributed his very original drumming sound to Savana Funk, but also to the Lisa Manara band and to many studio recordings. Nicola (keyboards) is a world-class player who is part of Zucchero’s core band, and has worked with Terence Trent D’Arby, Ramazzotti, Elisa. Let’s say that Savana Funk is a band composed by musicians that have a 360 degree scope.
Thank you for taking your time. Last word is yours.
We truly believe that music has the power to change things, to render us sensitive to certain issues through its words and sounds, and that is has an enormous capacity to bring people together. For this reason we also hope that music will be given more relevance in our schools and education system, throughout our country and the world.
Klemen Breznikar
Savana Funk Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp / YouTube / Spotify
Garrincha GOGO Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
