Sergio Todisco, better known as A Giant Echo, just dropped his latest single ‘Plunge,’ complete with a haunting self-directed music video that pulls you into its eerie orbit.

While grinding away on Last Eon’s next album, set to drop November 22, 2024, Todisco’s still finding time to release standalone tracks that don’t quite fit into the larger concept—proof the creative fire’s far from burning out. A Giant Echo’s sound draws from a deep well of influences—think Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and a touch of Morricone’s cinematic sweep. His 2018 debut ‘Songs by Ghosts and Machines’ and 2022’s ‘Resins 2’ were just the beginning, with ‘Plunge’ adding another layer to his shadowy, post-rock-tinged universe. Todisco handles the guitars, vocals, and much more, but he’s not flying solo here—Serena Pagnani’s backing vocals and Riccardo Bianchi’s drums lock into the sonic landscape on this one.

A Giant Echo drifts through the sonic ether like a forgotten broadcast, pulling at your insides with haunted melodies that creep up from the shadows. It’s the sound of late-night musings and lost highways, echoing with the ghosts of past regrets and flickering hopes.

“Time is one of my favorite themes”

A Giant Echo’s latest video feels like a dance between two realities. Do you see this as a reflection of inner conflicts, or is it more about the way we sometimes pass like strangers, even to those closest to us?

Sergio Todisco: More than saying both interpretations are true, I’d say that’s exactly the key to interpreting the video. It can be a story of two people who think about each other in the same context, facing the same reality. They give us a feeling they know each other, as well as the environment they live in, but they never meet because they walk completely different paths in opposite directions. At the same time, since the context is the same, identical, aseptic environment, all that we see could be a representation of a conflict between two attitudes, two inverse inclinations coexisting within the same person.

You’ve got a knack for mixing raw, intimate songwriting with sweeping, cinematic arrangements. How do you balance the minimal with the grandiose when writing music?

Thanks so much. I’d say the minimal is the origin, the primordial gene that gives birth to a story I’d like to tell (or an experience I’d like to evoke), and I have a vision of how I would like to tell it. I know that sometimes I want to stress the origin, but it might not be enough to try to understand it, which is why other times I want to stress what surrounds the origin—what could spark a fire, how it could develop, and how its development changes the feelings we experience while watching its evolution. So that’s why I need to add characteristics, colors, and details that offer different perspectives, altering how we observe the evolution of that (narrative) experience. I guess this is the process that leads me to complement a minimal part with more arrangements. Then, where, when, and how much I do it is a mere matter of taste.

How does the city’s atmosphere seep into your work, and does it ever feel like you’re trying to break free from its shadow?

I grew up and live in the countryside. City and countryside are two sides of the same coin: the places where humans live. We’re always there—a conflict. Humans started their experience in the wilderness, then they invented cities, and afterward, wilderness became the place they want to flee to escape from cities, their own strange creation. I think all of this influences me, or at least, how I tell stories (make music). Cities can be attractive, but sometimes I don’t feel comfortable in them—their sounds, their scent, their materials, and above all, their pace. That doesn’t usually happen in the countryside.

There’s a sense of wandering in your music—like a restless spirit trapped between time and place. Do you think A Giant Echo is more about finding a home or embracing the journey?

Time is one of my favorite themes; I’m literally obsessed with the idea of time, and it cannot be separated from space. In the name “A Giant Echo,” there is an element that’s the result of something that happened before (concerning time) and acoustic shadows spreading elsewhere from their origin (concerning space). So, there is a movement, and these acoustic shadows are certainly focused on the journey, but we can hear them from home (the origin). They leave home, embrace the journey, and return home.

Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave are mentioned as influences, but your sound also feels drenched in the ambient melancholy of bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor. How do you pull from these different sonic worlds without feeling like you’re wearing someone else’s coat?

Yes, I love Godspeed You! Black Emperor—’Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven’ is one of my all-time favorites. Songwriting (singing, vocal expressions) and instrumental music (GYBE, soundtracks, classical composers) are different influences that penetrated my soul with the same unavoidable, deep strength. I absorbed both growing up, and I need to give them both back. As different shapes of the same way to express (evoke) something, they pass through my body, come in, and get out of me. I guess it’s natural to honor both when I try to evoke feelings. ‘Resins 2,’ where you can find tracks with both sung and instrumental parts (like ‘Resins (Part One)’ or completely instrumental tracks), is a clear example of that.

“Everything is a reflection or evocation of something that has happened”

From ‘Songs by Ghosts and Machines’ to ‘Resins 2,’ how has your approach to songwriting evolved? Are you still chasing the same ghosts, or have new specters emerged?

Everything is a reflection or evocation of something that has happened, is happening, or could happen in the future. Happenings and feelings from past, present, and future events can be similar, but they are lived with a different state of mind, with a different body, with different people standing by you—or, maybe more crucially, with people not standing by you. All these feelings pass through me; all these ghosts meet me in different times and shapes, and we interact. Years pass, and I encounter new specters. Nevertheless, even if I’m still chasing the same ghosts (and that happens), it’s a new kind of chase because my feelings evolve, as everything does.

The video for the latest single has this tension between movement and stasis—two characters drifting in parallel but never quite meeting. What do you think keeps people stuck in their own circles, unable to reach out?

Exactly. One, from a close, static position, starts moving slowly until she casts herself into a liberating motion, escaping her limits. The other, from an open position, tries to move but only experiences his limits without going beyond them—he eases down, stuck in his circle. The field is the same, but their reactions are completely different. Maybe they know each other, they’re linked, but they never actually meet because they interpret their lives differently—whether together or not. Sometimes we are smart and brave enough to be better than ourselves, and sometimes we are not, and this portrays both cases. The tension you mention is the one we feel when deciding which path to walk. I guess we can limit ourselves; we can be our own limit, but that’s not the whole truth. We are immersed in a world where events don’t solely depend on our decisions and skills—coincidences and chances (which we cannot control) can make a substantial difference in our stories.

You’ve been writing music outside of the Last Eon concept. Do you see A Giant Echo as a space where you can explore the thoughts that don’t quite fit into the “big picture”?

At first, I imagined A Giant Echo as a space where I could move differently from Last Eon, in terms of instruments, arrangements, and lyrics. I wanted more than I can afford when playing live—more than two guitars, more voices, more instruments—and less cryptic lyrics than what I conceived with Last Eon. Besides, I envisioned A Giant Echo as a space where I could mix more influences, allowing a wider variety of genres to coexist within the same act.

There’s a touch of cinematic storytelling in your music. If A Giant Echo’s sound were a film, would it be more like a David Lynch fever dream or an Ennio Morricone slow-burn?

I take that as a compliment, and thank you—because, to me, making music is about evoking something by telling a story, using means beyond words. A story has a beginning, development, and epilogue, and we can play with these elements however we wish, just as they do in movies. Well, I’d choose Morricone, whom I love to death.

Your work has a certain haunted quality—like you’re communicating with something beyond the veil. Do you think music has the power to make the intangible tangible, or is it always a bit of a ghost story?

I like to play with the dichotomy between abstract and concrete—it’s an opposition I try to evoke, and it’s a fundamental characteristic of music (and our lives). Music is tangible: we hit the drums, the air moves, we hear, and something happens in our minds. And here we meet the intangible: we recall feelings, events, and connections with memories and desires, between past and future (even though we’re experiencing all of it in the present!). I guess that reveals some of music’s power. An “echo” is like a ghost of a sound that once existed, but the echo is itself a sound. The name I chose is not a coincidence.

How do you keep the creative spark alive while bouncing between projects like A Giant Echo and Last Eon? Is it ever a struggle to keep those worlds separate, or do they bleed into each other?

I usually have clear ideas about both projects. The struggle is not between A Giant Echo and Last Eon—when I start to play (or write), I know whether it’s for one or the other. The struggle is with time: I don’t have enough time to devote to them. Unfortunately, I can’t give these two projects the care and time they both deserve.

The video portrays two paths diverging, yet somehow intertwined. If you had to soundtrack your own divergent paths in life, what kind of song would be playing during the moments when you took the riskier road?

I’m sorry, I can’t say which song, but I’m absolutely sure I’d like to write and play it.

Klemen Breznikar

Headline photo: Sergio Todisco

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