Formula Indie Sessions – Interview with Frank Sinutre
Frank Sinutre is an electronic music duo from Mantua active since 2011, known for their use of unique self-built electronic instruments such as the ReactaBox (inspired by the famous Reactable, it is a MIDI controller where rhythmic loops, melodic sequences, and effects are activated and controlled through special objects placed and moved on an interactive screen), the DrummaBox (an acoustic drum machine based on Arduino), and the RotoTune (a system of interaction between electric motors and guitar), as well as traditional instruments (guitar, vocoder, synth, bass, lap steel guitar, etc.).
A home-made algorithmic visual set completes the show: this stream of images generated and transformed in real time from the audio signal, creates a unique and immersive experience.
The band has released 6 albums (including a soundtrack and a remix album) and performed more than 350 shows across Italy and Europe.”
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
(Michele) My earliest music memory dates back to Christmas 1983, when my cousin gave me a vinyl by Rockets, “Atomic”. Seeing their silver faces and those fantastic guitars felt like much more than just looking at a band. That was how I started listening to music.
A few years later, my father took me to a Pink Floyd concert in Verona, and after that one, many others followed.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
(Isacco) Speaking about music in general, my passion began when I was 16, just after I managed to put together a few chords on a guitar. Playing covers has never really been my thing (not that I have anything against it…I just don’t have fun doing it). Creating something from scratch to communicate in such a direct way, as only music can do, felt incredibly special.
More specifically, when it comes to electronic music production, I started really enjoying it around the age of 21. I began with FL Studio and later switched to Reason. When I discovered what could be done simply by plugging a MIDI controller into my laptop, I truly felt that this was my path.
(Michele) I started making music when I was 12, and I never stopped. At the time, it was just a game to spend Saturday afternoons with my neighbors (they were about my age, and I convinced them all to start playing some instruments). And I think it never really stopped being a game. It’s one of those things that keeps you awake in the evening in a positive, thrilling way, like trying to put together a puzzle or a Lego. I guess that’s why a music creator is also called a “composer.” I discovered how important is to follow a new idea when it knocks on the door of your mind, because the day after it might be gone.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
(Isacco) in 2011 I was asked to produce a soundtrack for a theatre project. At the time I was playing in another band, but I had the chance to develop this work with Michele, who was playing in a different band rehearsing in the same space as mine. That’s how we started working together.
In a few months we completed the project with very good results and discovered that we had a strong and effective workflow. After finishing the soundtrack, we started jamming together. I was playing the first version of the ReactaBox, while Michele was playing guitar with lots of effects, and the combination worked really well. That’s how our first live gigs came about.
Those jam sessions eventually became our first album, “Musique Pour les Poissons”. We call it our “water album”, both for its thematic background and for its nature: it was born as improvised music, free enough to change at every gig, like water taking the shape of different containers.
After that, we decided to cover the other three elements with the following albums: Air with “The Boy Who Believed He Could Fly”, Earth with “200 000 000 Steps”, and finally Fire with our latest release, “Propositi Per il Nuovo Anno Galattico”.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
We usually say, “it’s something like Daft Punk, but worse,” but the truth is that we have no idea. When someone asks this question, the expected answer would be a description of how the music sounds from the outside. Unfortunately, we can’t really answer it, because as producers we are trapped inside our own music. For this reason, we can never truly step into the shoes of a third-party observer.
What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
Well, we learned one important lesson after recording “The Boy Who Believed He Could Fly”: we put that album together almost entirely inside a Logic session, without really practicing the songs together. After finishing the album, we had to learn how to play those songs live, and we realized that we didn’t really feel some of them (maybe most of them).
That’s when we understood that the production process should work the other way around: first you play the song, you feel it, and only after building that kind of connection with the music you are ready to put it down on a track.
In hindsight it sounds obvious: play the song, then record the song… but it wasn’t. We were trusting technology a bit too much. Why practice playing together if you can comfortably build everything sitting at a desk? Well, we were comfortably numb.
What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?
Besides standard instruments (guitars, basses, lots of pedals…) and software (such as Reason and Logic), we use several homemade instruments. The main character of our live gigs is the ReactaBox, a MIDI controller in which rhythmic loops, melodic sequences, and effects are activated and controlled through special objects placed and moved on an interactive screen.
We also use other DIY instruments in the studio, such as the DrummaBox (an acoustic drum machine based on Arduino) and the RotoTune (a system that creates interaction between electric motors and guitar pickups). Recently we filed a patent for another special MIDI controller we called ReactaPad, similar to the ReactaBox but more compact and based on a different technology.
On our latest album, “Propositi per il Nuovo Anno Galattico”, we used a Moog Grandmother for the bass synth lines and a large number of field recordings captured with a Zoom H5.
As for the visuals, we have always developed them using Max/MSP, but we are currently working on an upgraded version based on TouchDesigner.
Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
Oh well, we strongly recommend listening to other artists on our new label, theDustRealm Music, such as Resonanz Kreis and The Future Sound Conco. We’re not saying this just because it’s our label. We genuinely mean it.
They are a small label based in North-East Italy, and they put a great deal of effort and passion into discovering and developing good music.
How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?
(Isacco) probably the most meaningful event impacting this project was a Björk concert I saw in 2007 in Verona. Some of the musicians were playing the original Reactable: it was something I had never seen in my life before, and I thought, “I need to play one of those.” Unfortunately, I soon discovered that I couldn’t afford it (it was around 20 k€ or so).
That’s why I decided to build my own version. I took a wooden box from my father’s basement, put some LEDs and a PlayStation camera inside, and programmed a basic piece of software. And there it was: ReactaBox-1 was born. Well, actually, it was much tougher than that. Some people helped me, including an engineer friend who explained a lot of software stuff to me, and my girlfriend, who helped me build it physically. And I have to say that the greatest support came from the fact that the core software, reacTIVision, was open source.
What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?
We’d like the listeners to dip into our sound and being transported by the stream of our music in a calm but constant flow.
If we talk about lyrics, they are quite minimal. The reason is that the simpler you keep them, the wider the spectrum of interpretation becomes. Everyone can expand the meaning of a song according to their personal experience and receive a kind of customized message.
For example, “Under This Kind of Light” is a song about life and biodiversity, but from another perspective it can also be interpreted as a very political song.
What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?
We learned that we need constraints. Nowadays there are virtually no limits in terms of instruments, software, or plugins: if you start trying everything, you get lost. You have to set some boundaries, decide which ingredients you want to use, and force yourself to make everything with those ingredients.
Freedom is important, but constraints should be defined as fixed points from which to start building. That said, it’s also fun to set rules and eventually break them. I guess it’s a balance between regulation and violation.
Another important lesson we learned is that time spent trying to imitate others is wasted time. We always say: this is our cake. We’re good at making this cake. Let’s create endless variations, let’s try to evolve it, but let’s not try to make someone else’s cake.
What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?
Definitely the Burning Man `in the Nevada desert.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?
We’d love to collaborate with Maurice Ravel, who, in our opinion, was one of the first dance-music composers. His way of repeating a single theme and layering different elements to create progressive variations has a lot in common with many aspects of electronic music. We even included an electronic tribute to his Boléro in our live show. We hope he isn’t turning in his grave too much.
Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links)
https://linktr.ee/franksinutre
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4HAxplF1kAD53XHmp-YYxw
https://www.instagram.com/frank.sinutre.music
https://www.facebook.com/FrankSinutre
https://franksinutre.bandcamp.com/album/propositi-per-il-nuovo-anno-galattico-2
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
Our next technical challenge will be the visuals: as mentioned, we are shifting from Max/MSP to TouchDesigner with the goal of creating tailored visuals for each song. We are experimenting with a combination of MIDI and audio signals to trigger a more accurate and engaging visual experience.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
We’d like them to know they can be “ReactaBoxers” in 5 minutes. At the end of each live show, they are invited to try it themselves. This habit started because people would always ask us what it was and how it worked. We realized that the most effective way to explain it was simply to let them use it.
That’s why most of our concerts end with a ReactaBox lesson. Sometimes, if the audience asks for an encore, we tell them, “Come on stage and play it yourself.” This is also a way to break down the wall between the band and the audience and to somehow blur the roles: the audience becomes the musician, and vice versa.
If you want here you can add a representative Youtube video to insert below the interview 🙂
Here are the links of our 3 latest videos from the most recent:
