Yosh Whale

Your music is represented as a silvery alchemical substance, which can be glimpsed in the cover and also in the video. Where does it come from? How did it take shape?
Both in the composition and in the realization part our songs can be represented as streams of consciousness. The music and opera as a whole are then represented as an artificial element that contaminates a natural environment. The union of artificial and flow made us imagine this material.

“Nilo” is a sensory journey of research. There is a strong sense of estrangement and of melancholy decadence, a footprint that’s slowly fading. Looks like impossible to make concrete elements so ephemeral and evocative that they seem to be appeal to an emotional and irrational dimension, and yet you have made it music and image.
What are the tools and sounds that have allowed you to translate this great concept in music?
The instrument that has given us extraneousness and melancholic decadence is the context in which we live, a periphery where nothing ever happens, forgotten by God. Here extraneousness becomes a necessity to free oneself from the boredom of the place. A place where cold cement joins in total cohesion with uncontaminated nature. The sounds that have allowed us to obtain these visions are the symbiotic union of natural elements such as voices and acoustic instruments with electronics.

The members of the band in the video are presented without revealing too much their integrity, actions are minimal and there is little introspection.
However, inside the piece there seems to be a piece of life, of life, a lot of life personal. How much of you is in this song?
This song is about very often conflicting personal emotions and feelings, which as they flow into an ordered world tangles in a twist of the world itself. These visions are an integral part of the need for estrangement that we mentioned earlier, and therefore represent our entire experience.

Valerio Bulla

How did you manage to make the magic of Yosh Whale’s music physical and visual translating it into the silvery substance that flows voluminously into the cover?
The guideline that I previously imposed myself to work on the first cover of the YW was to render a three-dimensional spatial concept in graphics. Not being a 3D designer, I started thinking about the possibilities of graphic formalization of space: at first I thought about orthogonal projections, but I was afraid that taking geometric or solid shapes could place the project on an aesthetic wake from the ’80s wave or recall – unwittingly – some historical avant-garde (suprematism, bauhaus, etc.).
The song ‘Nilo’ has an epic but also very rarefied and “cold” sound, at least as I perceived it. It suggested materials that were fluid and cold to the touch, like a silvery liquid – which is what I wanted to base the cover on. This idea of liquid could be combined with that of three-dimensionality; so I imagined a sort of waterfall gushing out of an epic, timeless scenario. I created a landscape and confined it in a circle, in turn metallic and silvery, so that the fluid would flow not only from the landscape but from a second spatial plane. To add another one, I placed the cover in a frame with the marks and the print coordinates. I liked the idea of provocatively “breaking” the boundaries of the digital cover (which by its nature is not material) and further accentuating the extrusion of the metal jet.

To return to the second question, what was it like to render image the magical Yosh Whale world?
The most exciting thing was being able to work from “zero” on the project. When Gabriella Esposito from Foresta contacted me we had nothing but the songs – which, despite the work I do, I hope are still the most important element.
To amplify the musical message we wanted to create an imaginary one that didn’t recall the aesthetics – now abused – of the so called ITPOP, also because the sound of the band isn’t based on that kind of styles. We talked to the guys and expressed the will to place ourselves differently, to make a wider aesthetic discourse (starting from materials and interfaces) and we met their favour. As in all the projects I’ve taken care of, for me the essential condition is to get me, the management and the band in agreement. That is to give life to an imaginary that is centered according to all those involved in the presentation of the proposal.
How it will be perceived, once out, is something that comes at a later stage. I like to think of it as “that’s what we wanted to say, no matter how it is received”. If it is received positively, the feeling that comes out of it is not only a reason for satisfaction but, in a broader perspective, it makes me understand why you love my work.