Discography
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Abstract Intact
2017
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Far Out
2015
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Karma Confusion
2012
Info
♠ Genre : Instrumental hard rock, space rock
♠ Lineup : FF: all instruments
We met Federico in the dark corridors of the Doom Room palace in march and interrupted his work on the mixing desk of the new Sepulchral Void album to chat a bit about his past and future works.
DRR: Hi Federico, how you doing?
FF: Hi Doom Room Records, i'm doing fine thanks!
DRR: Tell us something about your debut album, "Karma Confusion".
FF: Well... it's an instrumental guitar album, first of all. It was recorded over a one year period, a period in which my know-how of the Doom Room studio grew constantly. So the last track I recorded sounded much better than the first ones, some of which were recorded again. But I had to stop at a certain point or i would be still recording it.
DRR: What was that you wanted to achieve with this record?
FF: Putting out a record! Give form to all the hours spent noodling on the guitar. All those ideas that you lose as soon as they hit the speaker... such a pity! Also I wanted to learn something about recording ad mixing. Musically, I wanted to do an instrumental album that anyone can listen to without falling asleep or getting nervous.
DRR: Do you think you succeded?
FF: Half and half. Yes, because the records has so many different atmospheres and different styles and different guitars and sounds, but I'd like to achive the feeling using a narrower sonic palette now.
DRR: Why narrow the palette instead of broading it?
FF: Well you can't put an entire pork on the fire and eat it... yeah you could, but it would be rather primitive! (laughters). I'd rather choose my part of it and cook it slow next time.
DRR: So which parts are you keeping and which not?
FF: I think I'll keep the psychedelic side, the metal side and the grunge side. I'll go less blues, less pentatonic and less surf, even if i could put something of that in, you never know. Definitively I'll go for a more substantial production, so that there are no such differences of sound between the tracks, so I'll try to use the same drum kit and just a couple or three different guitars and amps thoughout the recording. I've used so many guitars on the first album, just to try different things. But I'd prefer the songs to come from myself rather than from the guitar I'm using.
DRR: Favourite guitar players?
FF: Mh most guitar albums are quite boring, even if the player is awesome. Too many solos, too many notes and will to impress. This is old story, and if you want to be impressed you can find many circus guitarists on youtube. What i think is lacking most of the time is the energy, that to me makes a difference. To me it's Ted Nugent.. the Stranglehold solo... that is some guitar playing. Then Gilmour. I liked the atmosphere of the first Chris Poland solo album, "Metalopolis" it was misterious yet fresh.Anyway it's hard to create energy with solos, you just have to go for a good riff and rhythm, and the solos are just an addition.
DRR: So what are you currently working at?
FF: I'm finishing a collaboration on a pop album with a german guy, producing the new Sepulchral Void album and I started writing my next solo album. Hope to finish at least one of these soon as it's a lot of work! Back to the desk now...
Here we are again, after the publication of the new "Far Out" album to have a little chat with the author.
DRR: Hi Federico, tell us about the new record.
FF: Hi, well the new album... it was lot of work! I started recording the first track soon after Karma Confusion had been released, while working on "At the walls of Sodom" with Sepulchral Void. The first track I recorded was the last on the record, "Blazar Blaze". Its vibe almost set the general idea of what I wanted to achieve with the record, an eerie sounding space-tripping experience but definitively hard rock. I wanted to stay away from easy achievable fx filled sounds that would steal the show from the riffs and solos. This is an hard rock album, riffs and solos are the body and blood.
DRR: Was it an easy process?.
FF: I wouldn't say so. Blazar Blaze took ages to be recorded, it was abandoned after the first part when I started working on the Sepulchral Void lp and simultaneusly on a double pop cd for which we did something like 70 tracks. Ah I forgot the Molotov Breakfast LP, that was completed but we still have to find someone who sings over it!
DRR: That's a lot of music... how could you switch from one project to the other?
FF: It's a matter of organizing everything so you have the right gear ready. Being lot of the process of recording digital you can create some templates and just load them when needed; for drums it's different, you have to do it all in a row cause changing the mic positioning is critical to the sound.That's why on "Far Out" the drums are not very consistent, because they were recorded on various sessions... but I like that. I could find different drum sounds for different tracks.
DRR: Which of your influences you feel pervade the record?
FF: The songs were almost written on the spot. some of the guitar tracks are the ones recorded while writing the song. So even if some passages may seem intricate, it has a very spontaeous feel I think. So my influences are right there without arbitration. I think Hendrix is there in the more bluesy lines, even if I tried to avoid the blues scales as much as I could. You could recognise a Voivod style feel in Synaptic Overdose, that's hard to avoid speaking of space stories. Basically I tried to bring an hard rock feel to a way of thinking a rock track which I think may have belonged to Yes or King Crimson in their golden era. I did not want to make it too brainy though, I also wanted it to have globally that Hawkwind free feel and lose your mind kinda vibe. In modern days that transforms in a stoner, acid feel.
DRR: Do you have a particular solo or track on the album that you are especially proud of or that caused you some headache?
FF: I think my favourite bit of playing is "Cage to the Continuum". I found this clean super compressed sound for the solo, with some univibe thrown in and I really liked the scale i used. You can really hear the guitar strings contorting. It was an imporvised solo, maybe the fastest track to realise. I also dig 'Nucleus Risin' a lot, has that Hawkwind / Monster Magnet feel and a lots of sound. That was a simple but great riff I had for years that I wanted to develop in something very big and epic, and I think I've found the right distortions and rhythm for that. The hardest one was the first, Blazar Blaze, mostly because I experimented a lot on it to find the right guitar and drum sound.
DRR: Tell us something about the gear you used on the record.
FF: I used my orange Charvel San Dimas Style 2, that's the guitar on the cover. It's a great sounding, heavy american guitar. The neck is so wide yet unbelievably comfortable. For amps, on almost all tracks i used a Fender Supersonic, which has a fat distortion I like a lot. It's not a metal sound, not that focused, but very wild and throathy. For solos I used a Marshall JCM800 to cut thru. Some fx and some synth sounds for added atmosphere, my old and trusty Eko bass.
DRR: Any plans for a tour?
FF: Unfortunatly not. There is so much to do here in the Doom Room world, I would not be able to find other musicians interested in playing my stuff, do all the rehearshals etc. And all investing money that you're not likely to see again. I'm too old to face this! And I should abandon all the other Doom Room projects I'm working on, and I find more satisfying working on that. Of course I miss playing live, but until I win some big money I think I must choose between the two.
DRR: So what's next?
FF: Stay tuned on DoomRoomRecords and you'll see!
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DoomRoomRecords is a concept by Federico Farne', who is also the webmaster and creator of the graphic content
DoomRoomRecords is not by now a real records label, just an artistic project.
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