Last spring Est-Egò made their debut with a notable and atmospheric, homonymous mini concept album… post rock? Space rock? A splash of psychedelia? Is it really important to define it? What matters is we are facing a deep and remarkably arranged piece of art.

Est-Egò were founded in Turin, Italy in 2015 and involve: Davide Invena (guitar and voice), Nicolò Capece (bass guitar and voice), Fabrizio Dell’Aiera (guitar), Marco Taverniti (drum). With this concept work, the band reveals personality and elegance, using effective passages and rarefied sounds for a rich result, balancing between space echoes and almost mystical moments. By analysing the five songs in detail, the work opens with Rinascente… and what an opening! Voices chasing each other and delicate guitars contrasting the strength of the drum. While, Dortmund – is handled on two different levels: a soft opening leading to a breathtaking finale. The third instrumental song is Pangea Pit, leading towards the most emotional moment of the concept: Ejkilgan. A strong plot, made up of twists à la Sigur Ros that only last for a second, as the stream of thought reminds us of the norther narrative, with sounds evoking majestic landscapes, restless and capable of hitting one’s soul. The album ends in style with Andersen and its heterogeneous rhythms, in an excellent mixture of melody and singing. Thanks to Invena himself, we discover new aspects about the project.

Can you tell us something more about the birth of such a peculiar and ambitious musical project?

It started for fun, the first songs were born like this. Firstly, we were a garage project, but after our last concert we noticed we were playing without really being involved. We were tired of using distortion. We rehearsed inside a stone stable and the volume was unbearable. That’s it, we started over by improvising without aiming at a result, just for ourselves. From small cells and elementary drafts we built instrumental songs which amused us. Afterwards, we realised we were following a specific direction, a potential and we started working on voices and texts by elaborating the idea of our concept EP.

You have recently shot a video for Dortmund. It is a unique work, how did you develop it?
Colour and light. Dortmund is the spirit of the album. We were looking for a simple idea which would visually describe our imaginative world, our mood. We met Gabriele Ottino a couple of times, trying to understand how to obtain the maximum result from a “playback”, even if it might be wrong to call it that way. The images that invade and colour us while playing are the key to the entire song and the album, as well. Shapes and colours and the subject depicted, the flood of peculiar submarine life evoke in the listener an idea of rebirth, of enduring development, a constant and unstoppable growth. This is the spirit of the album.

You all come from and collaborate with different musical realities. How did you find the right chemistry between the band members, in order to achieve such intimate and yet powerful songs?

The truth is they are not really intimate for us. What make things work is that we haven’t thought about any particular objective. Total freedom. Leisure. Pauses and beers rather than plectrums. Then, as I said before our songs are the result of a research of new opportunities, an effort to try and have fun out of the box, putting aside everything we were used to playing, but we have never really thoroughly thought about it. It happened naturally. At the beginning it was a mess, though -in time - everyone understood what his working space was, his role in a wider dimension and things found their own dynamics. It was a time consuming process. It took us eleven months to understand it and one to finalize all songs. Now, even when we write new music, each member knows exactly what to do.

You take onto the stage different imaginative worlds, where would you like to ‘project’ the listener?

We have never really worried about it. When we play we try to be in tune as best as we can, hoping that the ‘good musicians’ in the audience won’t be disappointed. We see a series of concentrated and unperturbed faces in front of us. We hope it is enchantment and not boredom. People come to talk to us after the gigs and tell us: ‘I really travelled’. So, we relax and smile again.

Could you tell us something more about your recent experience with Off the Corner?

Off the corner certainly surprised many people. Listening to something and seeing it played are two completely different concepts. Understanding who plays what is stimulating and funny. More people have seen and listened to us now, many more than before. It has been extremely useful for us and the two performances very highly appreciated. We are really satisfied with the result.

What are Est-Egò’s new project after the current tour?

We try to make the project grow every day with all available supports. We are not calculating individuals. We are working on new material and when it is ready we will try to understand what is the best way to deliver them, we’ll just wait and see.