Recycling of the soul | Fastidju

How has your (admitted) lack of musical experience helped to craft your sound?

The less you know about the craft, the whiter the canvas appears to be. With this in mind, conceiving the musical structures unburdened by any learned musical framework, I ‘naturally’ stumbled upon musical skeletons and languages that are, in parts, rather idiosyncratic. I emphasise, however, the verb ‘appears’, since, now that I have a – still very vague – idea about how music is produced, I recognise plenty of things I wish I knew about it before taking this leap.

What did you learn from your initial collaborators, and how did you go about incorporating their input into your sound?

It was a long process which stole, used, recycled and reused all of my soul and energy… I learned notions very sporadically from extremely different people over a (relatively) very short span of time. Regarding electronic producers, the digital age makes the second part of the question rather easy. Every producer I worked landed me essentially with a series of sounds and productions which I then puzzled together – though this wasn’t easy – mostly with the help of Mario Sammut. With the involvement of the band, then, the project took on a whole different level of complexity in production. The key to forming the ‘sound’ of the album was then to maintain, as much as possible, one mindset and vision, which welcomed every distant approach and part of the sporadic production without (ideally) losing integrity as a whole (which is not for me to judge).

What can you say about your choice to write in both English and Maltese? What kind of mood or dynamic is evident in the tracks where you pick one language over the other? 

In my case, not considering myself capable of consciously taking decisions such as writing lyrics from scratch (among many others), I tend to rely on the good old romantic cliché of waiting for some sort of line or ‘skeleton’ for a piece of lyric (which, in most cases seeded the songs) to dawn over me semi-consciously which I can then develop. I don’t ever remember asking myself ‘should I write this in Maltese or in English?’ My current take on this is that some languages accomodate specific states of mind more willingly than others. Therefore, since lyrically the songs mostly crudely depict and investigate states of mind, I tend to turn to the language that best suits the state I am in at that point in time.

There is a tendency for the songs written in Maltese to assume a more abrasive and sinister lyrical palette, while the songs in English usually showcase a more exposed kind of fragility. Other than that, the lyrics on both sides are, in my head, coming from very different places; but I simply can’t put the difference to words just yet.

Given your lack of formal musical training, along with an ‘unclassifiable’ – perhaps – sound, do you worry that you might not slot into any particular local musical subculture? Have you thought about ‘exporting’ your music abroad?

When working on a creative project of any kind, I’m always faced by an array of questions which cloud my vision and show me narrow roads which I later discover to be, most of the time, inexistent or exaggerated. I personally cannot deal with so many questions during the creative process. Therefore I only stick to one central question as my benchmark: what’s the most beautiful thing I can produce, given my current capabilities and resources? It might seem simple, but the implications it has are liberating, at least for me. Owing to this, I rest in the fact that I tried to do just that and hopefully managed. The project never aimed for a large audience (we’re only producing 100 printed packages). The project having been funded made this decision easier.

And yes – we do plan on exporting the music abroad as far as the internet reaches and possibly beyond. We’ll be sending our music to labels we like, people we admire, people who influenced us… planting seeds – the usual process. For the moment we’re too focused on getting the final bits done and the launch set to think any further.

Fastidju will be launching their self-titled album at St James Cavalier, Valletta on May 9 and 10. They will be supported by local band Xiola. Tickets at €8 and €15 (with album) can be booked by clicking here. The album and the launch concert are supported by the Malta Arts Fund.