Recently Musica Phenomena managed to catch up with one of Italy's premier indie electronic acts Casa del Mirto. Coming off of their recent double album release titled "The Nature" and their heralded remix of Class Actress' song "Weekend" Casa del Mirto took some time from their busy tour schedule to speak with us and this is what they had to say.
Musica Phenomena: You're from Italy, tell us a little about yourself and how the name Case del Mirto came to be?
Casa del Mirto: "Casa del Mirto" means "House of Myrtle". The myrtle (Mirto) is a plant that is used to make an excellent liquor. We live in northern Italy, and this liquor is a sort of "rarity", but in our town there was once a bar that served it (for breakfast) to the workers of a garage called "Casa del Freno" (it means "House of Brake). We have just joined the two things (House of Brake + Myrtle = House of Myrtle/Casa del Mirto), just for fun!
Musica Phenomena: I have heard and seen releases by you defined in different genres; glo-fi, chillwave, shoegaze - we're you influenced by any oldschool shoegaze bands like The Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, or Ride, growing up?
Casa del Mirto: For sure, bands like My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins have played an important role for our taste in music. These plays helped us to grow up in the teenage years, together with eletronic bands like Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode 'till the house music of the 90's. However is very difficult to say what has influenced us more, because we're used to listen and assimilate a lot of music. We are continuously searching for something that hits us and leaves us breathless.
Musica Phenomena: You're doing remixes as well as your own original material. Your Class Actress remix is wonderful and featured here on our blog. I know you recently finished a remix for The Swerve. How was that experience?
Casa del Mirto: We consider remixes as if they were our songs and we love to remodel tracks of other bands according to our personal style. We got in touch with Class Actress, after listening to them on a music blog. It was a good collaboration and the remix received a lot of good reviews, we're proud of it!
Yes, we just finished a remix for The Swerve, and we enjoyed the collaboration. They asked us for a remix of a song, so we listened to their two EPs and we literally fell in love with "Taken Apart". We worked hard and we like the result… hope you're gonna hear it soon! Maybe we'll stay in touch with them for a collaboration in the future, you'll never know!
Musica Phenomena: I've been a big fan of yours since the beginning, over a year now. "The Haste", from what I understand, is the song that put you guys on the map and is excellent. However, my favorite track is "Jacket And Shoes", a very catchy tune I hope more fans come to know - can you tell me what that song is about?
Casa del Mirto: The Haste and Jacket and Shoes have, more or less, the same theme: they both speak about the loss of control of your own life. J & S tells the story of a boy who has lost hope, a boy that has done everything in life and did not ever achieved anything. The situation degenerates to such an extent that eventually he wears his shoes and his jacket and just leave. It's actually a metaphor, the boy takes his own life. We liked the idea of using lyrics like these on a catchy and thoughtless music!
Musica Phenomena: Planning on any tours to America? Love to have you here in SF (San Francisco).
Casa del Mirto: We'd like to do it!! At the moment we're touring Italy so we are really busy 'till the end of the summer, nevertheless we're working in order to organize something in Europe, U.S. and SouthAmerica for the autumn and the next year, so we'll keep you informed or just check out our label website or our blog: www.mashhh.com www.casadelmirto.com We're even on Facebook!
Musica Phenomena: Chillwave is a genre I see on the rise and growing in diversity - bands like Washed Out, Niva, Persona La Ave, Chrome Sparks, Sleep 8 Over, Memory Tapes, Computer Magic, and even I Break Horses, are being defined as such - Are you a fan of any of them?
Casa del Mirto: We love the "I Break Horses" LP and along with this even some of the stuff of the names mentioned above. However, often, we find ourselves listening to stuff that has not so much to do with Chillwave in strictly speaking, stuff that has a "special mood" able to affect us and excite us. We say that we are omnivores listeners.
Musica Phenomena: And since our blog is, first and foremost, about promoting artists of Indie and Electronic music and all of it's sub-genres, are there any newer artists and / or albums you can recommend to our listeners?
Casa del Mirto: The last LP of Xiu Xiu, TRST of Trust, Oneohtrix Point Never, Soft Metals, Soap and Skin, Tearjerker and "Waves of past relation" of Atoi.
Musica Phenomena: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us, but, before you go, can you tell us of any upcoming releases or events we can expect from you in the near future? And where can one go to purchase your music and find out more about you? Thanks again for being a part of our blog, Musica Phenomena, for our new feature, "Fierce Spotlight" -- Michael Fierce
Casa del Mirto: Thank you for the questions, we're happy to be hear with you! We don't have any release scheduled for the near future, our last double LP "The Nature" was released in november 2011, so we'll be touring for a while. According to our commitments we'd like to collaborate with other bands or to do some remixes. But, you never know, maybe we can take the time to release some single soon, inspiration can't be scheduled!
You can purchase our music here:
Vinyl and tapes: www.mashhh.com (there's even something in free download)
Digital: www.casadelmirto.bandcamp.com and on all the digital stores.
Ciao!
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