Nosound mastermind and melancholic soundtracker Giancarlo Erra explains rediscovering the heart of his music, playing this year’s Marillion Weekend in Italy, and accidentally gathering enough material to make mini-album To The Core.
Giancarlo Erra is one of modern prog’s most fastidious creatives. Over the last 23 years he’s become a staple fixture in a vibrant scene, initially with Nosound, but now with the addition of a solo career and occasional collaborations with Tim Bowness. Erra’s records are almost always beautiful, elegant and lush with melancholic warmth, even when he's gleefully meddling with his own formulae.
The last time Nosound released a full-length album, they sounded hell-bent on redefining themselves, eschewing the languorous post-rock epics of previous, celebrated albums A Sense Of Loss and Afterthoughts, and opting for an eclectic, electronic-based approach, albeit still with Erra’s songwriting at its tender core.
Broadly acknowledged as a convincing evolutionary step, Allow Yourself was swiftly followed by deafening silence as Nosound retreated into the shadows. Since then, Erra has been an intermittent presence. Two gorgeous solo albums, Ends I-VII and Departure Tapes, revealed a new, more experimental side to his music; while an updated, remixed version of his 2011 team-up with Bowness – formerly Warm Winter, but retitled Memories Of Machines – emerged in 2022.
Meanwhile, Nosound have been conspicuous by their absence, one polarising Floyd cover aside. As Erra tells Prog from his immaculate studio in sunny Norfolk, the long wait for a new Nosound record ends right now. It might seem like a paltry return after seven years of silence, but new mini-album To The Core is 20 minutes of the most absorbing and emotional music that anyone will hear this year.
Nosound appeared to be done with guitars when Allow Yourself torched the band’s own rulebook, but there are guitars galore on these new songs. Even better, Erra notes that there’s more new material on its way up the pipe, even if he isn’t sure what form it will take.
It’s been seven years since the last Nosound album. You’ve obviously been busy with your solo work, but what caused such a long gap?
I don’t know – seven years sounds like a lot, but it didn’t feel like seven years. It was just about finding what was next, because Allow Yourself was a departure from what we’d done in the past. It was simply a matter of deciding to wait and see where time would take me. At some point last year, there was this group of songs. They were so nicely suited, like they were meant to be together. It was a sign, in a way.
Your solo albums are soundtrack-orientated, experimental and quite minimalist. Has your solo work freed you up to go back to using guitars on To The Core?
Yeah, probably. The solo stuff was about being more free to do the instrumental, experimental side of things, and that allowed me, in a way, to return to guitars. I’ve played guitar my whole life, but I was in a place where I was exploring more electronics for a while, and I still am. This place is full of synthesisers! But this was definitely about rediscovering why the guitar had been a central, melodic part of my music.
Most of your music has been melancholy on some level, but To The Core seems particularly raw, emotionally speaking.
Yeah, that’s fair. For me, music is mostly a way to cope with the least pleasant feelings in life. It’s always been a way to process and understand and connect with people. If I want to express happiness, I mostly want to have a beer with my friends or have a barbecue in the garden! When things are a bit less like that, I go into music and creativity.
Worn-Out Parts, the recent single, seems to have gone down a storm with Nosound fans. Is that proof that the direct approach is working?
There’s more coming. It will probably be a full album, but we’re in an era where the attention span is quite reduced
Worn-Out Parts is very interesting – I’ve got comments from people about it, and everyone is telling me that it means a different thing. For someone, it was about the coming of age, for another it was about the end of a relationship, and for another it was about an illness. It was every kind of thing. Once the music is out, it belongs to the listener, so I do like that everyone was able to see something different in it. It looks like it has quite a universal appeal.
Does To The Core represent part of a larger body of work – is there a new Nosound full-length coming soon?
Yes! There is much more coming. The other songs are all quite different, so I’m still working out what it’s going to be. It will probably be a full album, but we’re in an era where the attention span we had is quite reduced, I think. I’m sure there are people who want to listen to 70-minute albums, but generally speaking, we’re getting used to the fact that we are listening to shorter things. But yes, there’s definitely new material and it’s going to come out.
Is there a reason why you haven’t done a band photo shoot for To The Core?
That’s another good question. I suppose the reason is that this album happened, not unexpectedly, but it was like, “Fuck, we have enough songs!” Then we went quickly to Kscope to have it all ready, because we wanted to bring some copies to the Marillion Weekend. So initially it was all done on a hunch, on instinct. “Shit, it’s an album!” I thought the live photos from the Marillion Weekend were going to be good enough, so we didn’t book any photo session stuff. That’s the main reason. Also, I’m here and the band are in Italy!
Will the live band be back soon?
This band have always been the same. In the demo phase, we start exchanging ideas, so there’s always input from the band. When the core of it – the melodic lines, the harmonies – are all done, we start to talk about whether it’s something we want to play live.
As far as To The Core is concerned, we already played at the Marillion Weekend, and we played Worn-Out Parts for the first time. So yeah, Worn-Out Parts, The Nothing We Gave and Closure are songs that definitely belong to how we are as a live band right now.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
