Sonoio – Red Announced
SONOIO – Enough from Alessandro Cortini on Vimeo.
Alessandro Cortini has announced the second installment of SONOIO called RED. While BLUE was a work of art by utilizing a minimal set of tools to their fullest extent, RED is easily my favorite album that Alessandro has released. It’s catchy as shit, created with beautiful instruments and has Alessandro’s signature sound – a perfect summer album and will undoubtedly follow you for years to come. You can download the first 4 songs for free right now but the album drops on June 21st and physical products ship out around then. SuONOIO V2 has a new faceplate and sample bank full of sounds derived from RED. Like the first two batches of SuONOIO, these noisemakers won’t last very long. Support independent artists and buy something.
BLUE is still available as well as NON – a free remix album that features Ladytron, Big Black Delta, Richard Devine and other artists interpreting SONOIO’s work on BLUE.
Interview coming soon… If you have something to ask Alessandro, write it in the comments on this post and if it’s not stupid, we will ask it. We’ll stop taking questions Thursday evening.
*UPDATE – We’re cutting off the questions. Thank you come again.
*UPDATE 2 – If you’re still into badgering him with your questions, ask him on Reddit: HERE!
Question for Alessandro,
Everyone knows real men own cats. How many cats do you have exactly? In the “day in the life” video you appeared to have several. What are their names?
Love the music! Red sounds absolutely great
- Nick
Hey, i have a question; What kind of processes do you go through whilst writing new material? Like, do you just improvise upon recording to create early demos or are full songs already in the mix before recording has begun – or perhaps a bit of both? Great album so far btw.
Alessandro, your work is amazing!
Q1: Who did the mastering on Red and Blue?
Q2: Are all the sounds on these albums done on buchlas – even the percussion?
My questions for Alessandro are: How did you come up with the lyrics to Enough, ’cause I fucking love them.
Second: The vocals to Minutes remind me a lot of the vocals from a video you posted on your Youtube account (untitled.) Is it my imagination or are they indeed kind of similar?
Last one: How can you be so awesome, seriously? ;)
Some questions…
* Do you initially work out the basic chord progressions and melodies for SONOIO songs on guitar before entering the electronic domain?
* Tell us more about the vocal effects that you’ve been using in SONOIO. Are you using talkboxes, pedals, or just a good old fashioned vocoder?
* How did the song writing process for RED differ from when you were writing BLUE?
* Any plans for a SONOIO tour?
Keep up the good work!
Alessandro: Thanks a lot for all the effort in creating your music. The way you share it to fans it’s just fantastic. I think your music goes beyond the “headphones or club only” and that it fits perfectly in cinema thanks to your ability to create ambients so close to the way feelings manifest in human hearts.
Is it possible for your fans to use your music -with no copyright infringement intended- to score short films with no more purpose than the love for expression? The same way Trent Reznor and you did with the Ghost album for Nine Inch Nails.
Hi Alessandro,
What would you advise somebody starting out with TopSpin / starting out in selling your own music/film online?
Thank you
Andrei
SONOIO needs to be on vinyl. Will this happen?
Q: What do you feel works for cutting out external distractions when working these days?
Q: As an independent artist big of a role do you feel editorial constraint plays in developing a face for the project?
Over/out
*Q: As an independent artist, how big of a role do you feel editorial constraint plays in developing a face for the project?
Syntax.
What was the inspiration for the look of your live performances? It’s very stripped down and simple, but very effective.
BLUE and RED are highly electronic in nature (which I love). However, have you considered putting out a Sonoio album that was less electronic?
Trent Reznor recently posted a picture of you at work in his studio (at least I THINK it was you). If it was you, was this for RED or were you working on something with Trent? I think your work on Ghosts I-IV really made that album shine, and seeing as how Trent has mentioned doing more volumes in the future, would you be interested in working on them?
How do you select your remixers when creating a remix collection?
* Have you ever thought about touring in Europe especially in Italy?
* Are there any forthcoming collaborations with other artists? (There was a picture of you working in Trent’s studio…)
* Looking back to your old songs, which one would you make different?
* What role did the OP-1 have in the record?
You’re awesome
Q: In No Fun (at the end) and Minutes (in the beginning), I hear influence of 111108 (http://vimeo.com/2219111)… It is one of my favorite tracks by you – is it going to be in the demos, or released someday? Something similar happened with Happy, I liked the original video and then I was astonished to hear it on Blue.
And by the way – thank you for the music, for the way you present it and for the fact that waveforms of SONOIO *don’t* look like rectangles (yes, I mean the loudness war thing). ^^
Hi! My question for Alessandro is:
1) What your process of creating music does look like? Music and lyrics at the same time? Some Chords then music, Music than words?
2) And it’s interesting to me: what do you think about Depeche Mode and Einsturzende Neubauten?
Your new songs as previous are fantastic! “Can You Hear Me” reminds me something but i do not know what. Feels like I’ve heard it in my dreams.
THANK YOU.
When will the upgrade for the original 2010 SuONOIO be available?
Your music seems to have a linear path, and though I know Modwheelmood is a separate project completely, some of the lyrics seem to tell a story that SONOIO seems to be a continuation of, is this just by coincidence?
Also, I’ve noticed the official release is on June 21st, is there some significance behind it being the summer solstice or is this just coincidence as well?
So, the new album is called ‘RED’. Can we assume the first one’s name was ‘BLUE’ then? Not ‘SONOIO’, not ‘SONOIO blue’, just ‘BLUE’? What about the remix album? ‘NON’? ‘NON BLUE’? I thought it was called ‘NON SONOIO’ (i.e. “it’s not me”), but then we’ll have the same conflict when (if) a remix album for ‘RED’ comes out.
It isn’t a big problem, just a matter of nomenclature. The important issue is the music, which is really great and getting more and more awesome with every single release. Thanks Alessandro.
Q: Will the next one be green or yellow?
How many takes do you usually have to record for each individual song to finally reach the end product?
Questions for Alessandro from Italy:
1. Did you use the OP-1 in the recording of RED?
2. Where did the inspiration for music and lyrics of Red come from?
3. Was it hard for you as an Italian to take part in the american music scene?
Q: Your friend Trent Reznor is well known for releasing multi track files to the NIN community for remixing. Since Blue had a remix album, would you please make multi track files available for Red and/or Blue so that all of us in the fan community could have the pleasure of remixing your songs?
When we get the upcoming SuONOIO upgrade, or if we get the new RED SuONOIO, will it still have the old BLUE samples as well, or are they all replaced with the new ones? Also, will jumper X08 be used now, or is that still in the future?
How did you decide on using the OP-1 to perform Sonoio live? Did you consider using anything else?
Do you think you’ll ever use the OP-1 to record and not just perform?
Q: Can you talk about how limitations (such as working with primarily the Buchla on the SONOIO albums) and how they inspire you and force you to be creative.
What made you choose to OP-1 present Sonoio live? Did you experiment with any other gear choices?
What is the OP-1 controlling when you play live?
Do you think you’ll ever record with the OP-1?
Questions for Alessandro:
1. Is there any significance in the naming and colour coding of SONOIO RED and BLUE? If so what is it?
2. In your experience what are the best and worst parts of being an independent artist?
3. Will SONOIO RED feature similar emotional and psychological themes that appear in SONOIO BLUE?
I’ve got another one, although it’s not really about RED.
Is there any particular reason Silence (Alternate) was excluded from BLUE? Would you consider it “non-canon” to edit it into the regular Silence, assuming these are concept albums? The same goes for Headgames and ?.
Questions for Alessandro.
*What are your inspirations behind the lyrical content?
*When will the updating process for the SuONOIO v1′s start? Will there be a set date to have them in by or will it be a case by case basis? Any costs involved other than the shipping both ways? (I live in Australia).
*Do you think you would have ever been able to survive as an artist if this were happening back in the 90′s, before the boom of the internet and social media? If so, would you have commited to signing to a label?
Thank you,
Lara
Hi! With such a fantastic follow up album such as this, there had to be a different motivation going into it. With the basics of songs like “No Fun’ being written a while ago, it’s theme seems quite different to the empowering and motivational “Enough”, so, in writing RED compared to blue, what was the mindset you used to go into this album?
P.S., I’m such a huge fan and you are a complete inspiration to want to get out there and turn my own demos into songs. Thank you for the music, Alessandro!
What are your thoughts on releasing lyrics? As you’ve not released any from your albums?
PLEASE play some shows in Europe!
Looking forward to the answers! Loving Red.