Romantic Indiana Getaways

Interview with Nicholas Contessa (TAVRVS)

Thursday 16 December to Mads will be guests of the CTRL TAVRVS the electro duo Roman, who recently released their first EP with mozzarella RECORDINGS. Exclusive to our blog, Nicholas Countess spoke to us about how did the group, through musical influence and curiosity, not forgetting some small preview of the future work with an eye to the Italian electronic scene.


Interview by Di Palma Danielantonio

Vittorio Santoro (left) and Countess Nicholas (right)

We are in 2005, the year in which two young Romans are known and appear to play the trumpet and bass, respectively, in a band called The Routine. And 'where, three years ahead, the groundwork is laid for the emergence of Tavrvs.

Nicholas Contessa: The Experience of Routine basically taught us how to make music e! At that time many new sounds were coming from abroad that intrigued us, and we decided to abandon the guitar and try to use synthesizers. The result has evolved over time, and me and Vittorio TAVRVS were born, while Gabriel (the other element of the group) continued with a songwriting project ( http://myspace.com/gabrielemili ) that we love so much and with whom we continue to work in other forms.

Today your music sounds very much influenced by the French Touch, Electro, Funk and Disco 70's, with some reference to the likes of MSTRKRFT and Justice. How did you develop your sound?

spending hours and hours in the studio! We tried to figure out how to reproduce the sounds that we liked, and in what directions we could push for renderli più personali. Le nostre influenze comprendono senza dubbio quelle che hai citato, ma ci tengo a citare il funk italiano anni '70, a cui rendiamo omaggio durante i live con il nostro edit/remix di Lunedicinema del grande Lucio Dalla . Inoltre è stato fondamentale iniziare a fare parecchie serate nei club, stando davvero attenti a capire cosa funziona sul floor e cosa funziona meno.

Quindi molti club, tanti live nelle serate di maggior richiamo, ma anche una prestigiosa partecipazione all'Elettrowave di Arezzo del 2009 in cui avete raggiunto le finali.

L'esperienza di Elettrowave è stata fondamentale perché è arrivata when we started a few months, we were immediately confronted with quite large areas and at the same time we received a confirmation that we were going in the right direction. At first we were so embarrassed that when we made the first selections in Reggio Emilia, we had dinner with 2manydjs but we were too scared to ask them to speak and we have not even said goodbye! Fortunately, going back and we knew what we were doing was perhaps not just be thrown out.

2manydjs addition to that you just mentioned, have shared the stage with other international artists like Fischerspooner, Kap Bambino, Tiefschwarz, Man Like Me, Transformer. What is meant for you?

We liked to receive in most cases a good positive feedback, both from the group to play and audiences. Playing with the more established names, you always fear that the public is a bit 'biased against of the opening act, but fortunately in our experience this has never happened, but often the opposite has occurred!

Last September he released your first EP "Extended Play" with the tag MOZZARELLA RECORDINGS.

We met Francis (French, Frank Agrario) of Mozzarella Recordings already at the time of the routine, called us to play when we had never set foot outside of Rome. We found that our tastes were very similar. We continued to feel over the years and when we arrived with TAVRVS to have a little 'material that convinces us, we did hear him and we immediately offered to release an EP! We are very happy because the label's aesthetic very much in line with the sound we love, we could not ask for anything better for the first official release. The songs sum up a bit 'all the way we have done in recent years: the love for the sampling 70s, funk bass lines and a good dose of distortion to add a dimension to rock the dancefloor.

Tavrvs (Photo by Enrica Mistretta)

you think the electronic scene in Rome and Italy in general is ripe for this music? Do you think that artists like Crookers and Bloody Beetroots have helped to bring the public closer to the electronics and to reduce the gap with reality, such as France where the electronics produces an impressive number of productions and artists?

Undoubtedly

Crookers and Bloody Beetroots, beyond the personal evaluation that you can have on them, have given the impetus to put Italy the center of the global electronic scene. We hope that this is not an isolated phenomenon but in their wake many other names fail to emerge at international level (as is already happening) then I do not think we really have nothing to envy to France or Germany.

In this regard, the interview made to Constantin Louis, leader of Discofunken, at the previous event weblog CTRL Mads alluded to the desire (and ability) to create something that could evoke in Rome in many ways as a label KITSUNÉ 'and ED BANGER (see the French case) with the intent to join forces from a primarily artistic point of view.

In fact one of the problems of Italian artists, in my view, is that they often fail to combine forces, as they have learned abroad to do for many years. Looking around, if only in Rome, you see a lot of really good, I am convinced that fruitful cooperation we can achieve very important goals. So we basically can not wait!

still picture of Nicholas and Victor during a live

I can not stress that this idea of \u200b\u200borganization expanded to more artists you would already prepared having regard to your attitude towards cooperation with other organizations to review and songs from other bands to remix the case with, for example, de Monsters and Masoko.

Exactly! We have always tried to be open to the exterior, having relations with foreign groups, but without forgetting that the band had around the corner! When we received proposals for the remix, also by bands who come from very different backgrounds as Monsters , we took the ball to show that in Rome, in fact, things are moving, often enough that there is only the will.

We expect a very busy 2011, what are you planning?

Definitely we want to go out with another EP later this year. We have several ideas in the pipeline, even at the level of remixes, but we can not say more.

With your CTRL live close to a triptych which had as guests at the Frank Sent Us Out to Black and last month the fact Discofunken. I ask you too: some surprises coming for the hot public CTRL?

Among other ideas, we planned to insert a small mention of an electro smash the last few months ... Or better to edit his 100% Italian ... But maybe I've already said too much! It was not until Thursday.

Tavrvs Here are some of the tracks to listen:

TAVRVS - forever1998 by mozzarellarecordings

TAVRVS - root by mozzarellarecordings

TAVRVS - zwaibreak by mozzarellarecordings

TAVRVS - starglider by mozzarellarecordings