Based in Catania, Sicily, hi•ku brings together Gianluca Montagna, Federico Mancuso, and Marco Spalletta to create music rooted in dark pop and synth-wave, with echoes of Depeche Mode, Massive Attack, and She Wants Revenge.

Formed in 2022, the trio explores themes of human connection, time, and imperfection with an introspective approach. Their debut single, ‘Hiding Place,’ reflects on scars, loss, and the fluid nature of life, accompanied by an underwater video that captures its meditative essence. Today, we’re premiering ‘Hiding Place’ alongside an interview with the band.

“The goal is to recreate a romantic and melancholic mood at the same time”

Would you love to discuss your entry into music and how that led to the formation of hi•ku?

Federico: We’ve always made music. Gianluca and I started writing music together a lifetime ago, when we were 17 years old and Nu Metal was the most common genre. Over the years, we artistically separated and reconnected many times, until we decided to get back into the game and write music based on our own ideas, starting from the ashes of a band that saw us involved as singer and guitarist.

We pinned dark wave as a starting point, but we knew we needed a third person, someone outside the genre, who could give a different sense and direction to the project. That’s how Marco Spalla—guitars and synth—joined our band, and his presence was crucial to giving the right shape to the hi•ku sound.

Catania, Sicily, is where the project was born, yet your music draws on a wide range of global sounds, from Japanese Haiku to Western synth-wave. How do your Sicilian roots influence your work, and in what ways do you see the local and the global coming together in your music?

Sicily is an island, historically full of contamination. We are used to accepting what comes from the outside, becoming a million things all at once.

But at the same time, we live in the paradox of being contaminated without being able to contaminate. Sometimes in music, or art in general, you move in the direction closest to the market, trying to have a chance. Our island (unfortunately) has a hard time telling its own story and selling its realities.

We remain closed in ourselves—in our case, in a world made of things that we like and make us feel good. Fortunately, we like a lot of things.

Your music draws from a rich blend of influences, from the dark soul of She Wants Revenge to the futuristic sound of Massive Attack. How do you see these influences shaping your sound?

We start each of our concerts with a sample from the Twin Peaks OST composed by Angelo Badalamenti, precisely the dark part that precedes the melodic climax of ‘Laura Palmer’s Theme.’ We find it hard to think of a darker sound than that. The power of this kind of music is that it can make you feel in prison and free at the same time—we think it’s a fascinating feeling.

The influence of Massive Attack… how is it possible not to be influenced after the first listen? From them, we take the will to be linked to the historical moment in which we live. We try to represent the feelings and perplexity of the society we belong to.

In order to do that, we move through the atmospheres of a world in which the contrast between technological evolution and the loss of collective values in favor of increasing individualism is growing. The digital “vapors” of synthesizers are used to make you imagine large, smoky, confused cities where the groove, breakbeat, and distortions break with the conscious nature of those who want to react and inspire others to do the same.

Given the brevity and precision of Haiku, how do you translate that poetic form into music, and what role does minimalism play in conveying the depth of the emotions you’re trying to express?

The hermetic power of Haiku is something that no one in the history of art and literature has been able to recreate. For us, condensing this powerful art within a 3-minute piece is a real poetic challenge.

The goal is to recreate a romantic and melancholic mood at the same time with few elements. It could be a sound, a phrase, or something that captures our attention and disconcerts us. We’ve already understood each other so deeply that often, while listening to something, we smile and say, “OMG, this is SO hi•ku!”

“‘Hiding Place’ was born from the awareness that everything is changing”

‘Hiding Place’ is described as a song about scars that not even love can heal, about the constant motion of lives and stories. Could you delve deeper into the personal or universal experiences that inspired this track?

‘Hiding Place’ was born from the awareness that everything is changing, that there are incompatible things, people, and lives, and that it is right to accept this, as well as the becoming of events. The places where we often hide are not tangible but are corners of our mind that, unfortunately, are not so far from what awaits us, from what we truly are.

The underwater visuals for ‘Hiding Place’ suggest a deep meditative journey into the subconscious. What role do visuals and graphic concepts play in translating the abstract ideas behind your music?

The underwater visuals in the video for ‘Hiding Place’ were an idea of our director, Mirko Puliatti. In our imagination, there is the idea of never telling a story in its entirety; we prefer to express an emotional state, elusive yet impactful feelings. The lack of gravity, the sensation of void beneath your feet, and finding peace in the silence of an environment where you can’t breathe—all of these feelings are universal and can be sensed in any story of any nature: love, work, or self-conflict.

In hi•ku’s music, words and images will always be part of an indissoluble totality.

The imagery of being “trapped in the spider’s web of days, weeks, months” evokes a sense of inevitability and entrapment. Do you see time as an oppressive force in your music, or more as a companion to the journey?

It’s hard to say. The paradox is always the same: feeling “oppressed” is a horrible sensation, but it’s often just the signal that both your body and your mind perceive to provoke a reaction.
We imagine this feeling as a lunatic companion of our everyday lives.

You mention that every person is a puzzle and that “rarely our pieces fit with others.” Do you see your work as a way of navigating and understanding these fractures, or is it more about accepting them?

Both, but ‘Hiding Place’ is also a song about the importance of communication and how, through it, the edges of the pieces of the puzzle can take on a different and more “compatible” shape.
Through music, you can communicate more easily, especially with yourself. Maybe this is the real answer. Communication is part of the journey.

You’ve mentioned a “fil-rouge” connecting the music, visuals, and graphics of the upcoming releases in 2025. Can you elaborate on this concept?

The songs we worked on between 2023 and 2024 are the essence of hi•ku. They are deeply permeated with our idea of music and aesthetics. From day one, we understood and wanted hi•ku to be a multi-artistic story where every bit of our production told our mood. This has gradually turned into a unique narrative made up of many small visual and sound poems, allowing us to create, with the help of friends and professionals, a melancholy multi-act work. ‘Hiding Place’ is only the beginning.

How do you balance these seemingly opposing forces—technology and emotion—in your music? Do you view the technological elements of your sound as a means to amplify human emotion, or do you see them as an emotional statement in and of themselves?

All of us had the opportunity to grow up during the ’90s and the early 2000s.

We experienced the transition from analog to digital, which has now become the main way of making music. Once, there was a perception that electronic music was “plastic” or merely an embellishment to the emotion of writing a song.

Today, we believe it’s a unique and complex process where all the steps come together at once: starting with an idea, continuing with research, and finally recognizing the original idea in a sound.

What’s next for you?

2025 is the year we’ve decided to leave the production studio and share our little haiku with as many people as possible. ‘Hiding Place’ is just the first chapter of this journey, and we already have new songs and video clips that will enrich our story while we continue seeking out other emotions waiting to be turned into music.

Klemen Breznikar

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