Things have been quiet for RTR as of late. Releasing three tapes every quarter leaves a lengthy pause with once regular features like The Maker series also dropping off. The latest instalment in this series brings the conversation to Demetrio Cecchitelli, a multi-instrumentalist and sound artist from Rimini, Italy. Demetrio’s ‘The Wolf’s Lair’ (RTR057) was released in August as part of the Summer 2022 batch alongside albums by Pangolins and Yggdrasil. Demetrio’s album presents two long-form pieces consisting of slow, reverberating drones, processed soundscapes ad ritual flutes. Prior to releasing via RTR, Demetrio’s work has been featured on labels such as Whitelabrecs, Elan Vital, Midira, Cathedral Transmissions, and Healing Sound Propagandist.
In this feature, Demetrio talks discovering ambient music, imagination and reactive impulses as inspiration, creating from concepts, and riding around town with a Walkman.
How did you first get introduced to ambient/drone/experimental music?
When I was 16 I decided to become an electronic musician. After a period of practice with softwares like GarageBand and Logic Pro I started experimenting in the fields of electroacoustic music just by looping sequences and pumping all the mix with a huge reverb. Then I think that the true introduction to this area was the need to find some emotional-static listenings, and I can say that my curiosity and especially YouTube really helped me at the beginning, also because the city where I live didn’t propose a certain type of music/sound and so I had to do it on my own.
What inspires you to create a new body of work?
Sometimes it can be also the light passage or a landscape, a strange or happy feeling, love and simply a thought. Most of all times I’m inspired by the possibility of imagining something and the reactive impulse to build this idea into a new body of work.
How do you approach working on a new release?
It depends if I start with a given concept or even I have collected a bunch of tracks that are similar each others and then I try to compose something new on that aesthetics. As fitting example, in the case of ‘The Wolf’s Lair’ it was a concept or an inspiration, as told in the previous question, that is growing in the exact moment of the creation of the pieces – in fact I love to play extemporaneously and to work with improvisation and instant gestures.
Can you tell us about your favourite new release from the last 12 months?
I really love the new Between release over Longform Editions!
As RTR is a tape label, we have to ask: What attracts you to the cassette medium?
I think cassettes are magic, and this word it’s all – but I love the way I can handle them, going around with my bike and a walkman.
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