Cataldo Cappiello is a guitarist and composer with a reflective style. With minimalistic pieces, he creates such deep and evocative experiences. There’s meaning not only to the melodies but even the spaces between them weave into the language, into the narrative. And it all feels so immersive.
His latest release is ‘To Live in a House of Wind’, a track that has such infinite elegance and imaginative prowess. The song is strung with floating pieces of piano melodies, scattered and connected like stars in a constellation. And within the shapes and contours that they form, a whole life is lived.
The ambience that is cast is thoughtful, reminiscent, soft and bittersweet. It’s as if he is tracing grounding and dispersing patterns, as they manifest in all our lives, simultaneously. He captures the sentimentality of objects in houses while grasping at a deeper and meaningful feeling of home. There’s also seemingly a whimsical plane that flows through the theme and presents it to the listener. It’s a beautifully made composition, a concept that unravels uniquely for each listener.
Listen along as you read the interview :
Interview : An Expression & Exploration of Simplicity in Music
1. Hey! Congratulations on your latest release! What inspired the creation of this composition and what do you want your listeners to take away from it?
Hey there, Sinusoidal – thank you so much for this space and opportunity! “To Live in a House of Wind” was born from quite a complex and maze-like moment in my life, riddled with decisions to make, and obstacles to overcome – I started yearning for a simpler life that would detach myself more and more from social media, technology, materialism, and the absurd speed of capitalist rhythms.
This new track of mine serves as an antithesis to all of that, and therefore, an escape from it: it’s calm, clean, clear in its intention, true to itself. That’s how I wanted it to make me feel. And now I want my listeners to feel that slow-down as well – it’s almost like an audio equivalent of a wabi-sabi artisan piece.
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2. How much of a role would you say minimalism and simplicity played in bringing out your vision?
That’s such a relevant question, and an opportunity to tell you about the composition and its arrangement!
You see, this was one of those projects that didn’t start from the harmonic progression or the melody alone – rather, these two elements originated from the same feeling, and inextricably grew into a woven web of ever-evolving colours and shapes.
This allowed me to be especially free through the choice of chords, and sometimes complexity became the key to express the emotion I had in mind.
More specifically, the use of backdoor dominant chords granted a special balance to the composition, now gracefully oscillating between light and darkness, just as I wanted. There’s also a lot of chord extensions and suspended chords, so one could say that the foundation of this track is actually relatively complex.
That said, the arrangement went in a completely different and minimal direction – this question of yours is itself proof that my plan worked, and that the underlying complexity didn’t hinder how approachable the final result would be.
The aura of apparent simplicity in this track stems from my decision to just use one single instrument: a warm, soft and felted piano that would (almost) always play a monophonic melody on the right hand.
This leads us back to me mentioning the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi. Simple sounds, placed with intention, imperfect in their perfection, hiding a complex story, and an emotion that forces your mind to slow down and appreciate the moment. That’s what guided me towards an unconventional decision: one of the microphones was placed very close to the piano’s hammers. As a result, the arrangement feels very human and “imperfect”, with warm and wooden mechanical sounds that some of my friends defined as “clockwork-like”.
I could say that I intentionally pursued a minimal sound, built on a foundation of complex choices and intentions.
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3. What is the significance of the title and what were some of the ideas and emotions that led you to it?
“A simpler life”, I said earlier. A life that would free us from consumerism, hustle culture, and a routine that’s fast for the sake of being fast. That’s what I long for. I crave a life full of light. So I imagined this absurd scenario where a flock of wise birds would storm through my apartment, and fly away with all of my belongings, taking me with them. I would live in a way that’s honest, genuine, transparent, nomad. Unsheltered. And through my journeys in my house of wind, I would smell the scent of forests, and see men (and therefore myself) for how small they are, and exist in a freedom that slowly and naturally erodes all of my burdensome belongings.
This vision was then translated into the track’s visual art, which I personally designed to deliver the same story and emotion I just described. I chose a sunset instead of a blue sky because it better suited the idea of one slowly being freed from the burden of things – a flame-red sky, eroding at my house of wind, burning all that meaningless stuff, eventually leaving me alone with the wind itself.
4. Who are some of the artists who inspired your work and got you started on this journey?
The list could go on and on, but I’ll just mention a couple of names that will be completely unsurprising to those who’ve been following my efforts for a while.
I’d say my original inspiration has been Alcest, whom I have discovered through “Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde”. That was while I was studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, listening to the Metalcast (if you remember that, you’re my hero!) and discovering new artists weekly. Alcest’s music shook me. Up to that point, I hadn’t realised how deeply music could touch me. It was a true revelation, which coincidentally came to me right when I was studying the basics of classical guitar.
Stephan’s music is what made me realise that I didn’t just want to play other people’s compositions – I wanted to write my own, and hopefully make someone else feel the way I felt on that special day, when “Ciel Errant” changed my life.
I also want to mention Porter Robinson, who inspires me to always pursue that intense dichotomy of joy/melancholy, signature of his own art. Porter taught me to be free, fearless, and to experiment while never hiding my own emotions behind a wall of ermetism or abstraction. If only I could thank him in real life, I would be immensely happy.
Finally, and this might come as a surprise to those who are discovering me through this new track of mine, I am a massive Meshuggah fan. The fractal and hyper-complex nature of their compositions fascinates me. Nothing is left to chance, even in their most chaotic-sounding songs, and every album is a perfect marriage of uncompromising sound and cold calculation.
Meshuggah have left an indelible mark on my music. While you listen to “To Live in a House of Wind” you can hear a faint echo of that… Sometimes, the same melody is repeated, but with a different harmony. A couple sections are stitched together through chords and shapes that only appear once in the entire composition. And I could go on – point is, Meshuggah’s influence has helped me greatly in the process of delivering that minimalist and clean feel while keeping a rich and characteristic foundation.
5. When it comes to concept, emotion, intuition, and imagination, which one of these do you think plays more of a role in your song making and why?
It’s mostly intuition. I never sit down at my desk and decide I’m going to write a song. The inspiration and motivation always come from mysterious places, and at unexpected times. Usually, it’s from some kind of inner “container” overflowing, if that makes sense. That’s my “Alcest” side. Songs usually start as tiny strands of notes and a couple of chords, which I often find on my instrument of choice – the guitar.
Then, as I flesh the ideas out, and the arrangement gets richer and the song longer, I gradually shift from intuition to concept. I become an architect, and obsess over my compositions being perfect and organic systems by the time they reach completion. It’s a very fascinating shift to me, and other musicians who work with me know it very well, I’m sure. Maybe way too well – sorry, Ivan and Luca!
6. What are the three words you would use to describe your style?
I would definitely say “cinematic”, as I always aim to tell a story through my music, and I define my compositions as “Films you can watch with your eyes closed”.
Then maybe “emotional” would be a good fit too. Emotion is the absolute pivot of my style, and in a world full of music designed to be harmless and act as a background, my compositions demand attention and love surprising the listener. That might not be for everyone, but I have accepted that – and that actually leads me to the third word: “Unapologetic”. I refuse to pigeon-hole myself into a single genre, and you will find out that my production includes several polar opposites, such as ambient, metal, neo-classical, harsh noise wall, prog rock, and so on. True emotion is boundless and cannot be restrained to a single style or medium.
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