Last year Sergio Altamura re-released his debut album Blu on Candyrat, and I happened to really like it. I asked Sergio about re-visiting the music on it, and it’s relation to his second album Aria Meccanica.

You recently re-released your first solo album Blu. What was it like to re-visiting that music? How do you feel your music has evolved between that album and Aria Meccanica?

Blu is an album I was lucky enough to record with the help of William Ackerman who actually produced it. I asked CandyRat records to re-issue it as I think it didn’t get the recognition it deserved back in 2004. It’s an album with a great sound quality I believe, and after 8 years still sounds fresh to my ears.

Blu marks the beginning of my solo career, and Aria Meccanica is nothing else than a development of ideas already expressed in that first record. In fact, “Breakfast in the Sun”, the last track on Blu, is nothing else than “Final Blu” merging in Aria Meccanica. You can say that both records are part of the same concept.

Aria Meccanica depicts my musical thoughts from the period between 2004-2009, in which I had the need to hear different sounds other than those normally associated with the guitar, and I conceived some of my pieces with a chamber music feel, while in other ones I was looking for more of an orchestral result. This led me to research into producing sounds out of my guitars which are not conventional, and which have become an important part of the musical mosaic expressed in Aria Meccanica.

Could you talk a bit about your early influences and what led you to play solo steel-string guitar?

I’ve been influenced by many musicians, and not just guitarists, here’s a few: Steve Tibbetts, Fred Frith, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, The Edge, Andy Summers, Michael Hedges, Ralph Towner for the guitar, but also Arvo Part, John Surman, the ECM label, Brian Eno, John Cage, etc.

I actually took up the acoustic guitar after listening to Windham Hill artists such as Hedges, Degrassi and Ackerman

Who would you consider to be the biggest influences on your music?

THE BEATLES

Could you describe your setup (guitars, effects, etc…)?

I play a Martin D28 and an old Lowden 12-string ss 22, both amplified around 30% with a Sunrise magnetic mic in the sound hole and 70% with an L.R.Baggs Dual Source system. This way the overall sound is sourced from 3 different areas of the instrument, letting me exploit every acoustic detail which comes out of the guitar in its entirety.

Strings are picked up by both the Sunrise and the Baggs, while the Baggs’ internal condenser mic is great for capturing the sounds coming out from the sound board, such as percussive effects, and also contributes in rendering the strings more naturally. When I use a cello bow on the guitar strings, I filter the Baggs signal through a 10 band MXR equalizer to obtain a warmer sound. Both guitars have 2 outputs for each mic system, which I plug into the Instrument and Mic inputs of my Boss RC-20 loop station.

As a reverb I use an old Lexicon LXP 1, and sometimes a Boss DD6 for bowed guitar. For gigs in smaller venues I tend to use the RC-20 as it’s handier and smaller, while in bigger places and for video recordings I switch to its bigger brother RC-50 as it records loops at 44.100 hz, which makes a difference, and can also record tracks on 3 different channels, which opens the ground to be more creative with pan-pot stereophonic effects.

Usually track 1 is positioned on the left of the spectrum, 2 in the middle and 3 on the right, and while I’m performing a piece I select live the track to which I’ll assign a loop according to the composition’s specific melodic or percussive lines. Moreover this machine allows me to assign a different output to each track, letting me equalize them separately.

You use a lot of tools and devices on your guitars, do you just try stuff out until you find something that inspires you or does the music guide your choices? Any discoveries you’re particularly proud of?

It’s been years since I started an on-going research and experimentation on the tonal and technical possibilities of my instrument. I spend hours at home improvising and using all sorts of objects applied on the guitar, and when I discover something interesting to my taste, it becomes part of my repertoire of sounds, and I can use it I when I need to.

“Down Roma Traffic” is a bit of a synthesis of all these years of discovery, from a tonal perspective, but also textural, vocal (I try to use my voice as an extra instrument) and technical (use of bow, devices, etc.) My most precious discovery is my own musical self.

Any upcoming plans or projects in the works?

At the moment, to avoid composing boring music, I’m not composing at all, as I’m going through a lot of thinking about my next work’s tonal landscape. I just completed a show with dancer Lucrezia Valeria Scardigno, which is an interactive performance between sound and body. In this show I focus on manipulating the sound material, using mainly an electric lap steel guitar. Moreover I’m a member of the Guitar Republic trio, with whom I’ll be touring again shortly.

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The first word that comes to my mind when listening to Sergio Altamura’s Blu is ‘cinematic.’ To be honest, I don’t even think of it as a guitar album. It’s just really beautiful and evocative music.

Originally released in 2004, and now re-released on Candyrat, this album is quite a gem. From the opening notes of “4C” you know you’re getting into something special. The sparse nostalgic melody sets things up for what’s to come. ”Villaggio Globale” then picks things up a bit, with the right hand keeping a solid percussive groove while the right hand plays pensive melodies.

Other standout tracks include “Luna”, a gorgeous ballad that may very well bring a tear to your eye, and “The Octopus Man.” The latter has a similar feel to “Villaggio Globale,” but the vocal harmonies add a timeless, otherworldly feel.

But the track that really brought it home for me was “Before the Sea.” I’m not even going to ruin it by trying to explain it. Just listen:

See what I mean?

Sergio is one of those few guitarist who is able to transcend the instrument. This isn’t a guitarist composing music…it’s a composer using a guitar as a vehicle for his music. I like this album so much, I feel bad for not having known of its existence before. Get it. Seriously.

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