Violetta Del Conte-Race and Xanthe Waite of Melbourne band Primo! gave us an insight into new LP Sogni. This record feels fresh and finds Primo! building on their post-punk sensibilities, experimenting more – the record features saxophone, violin and sound created by dry beans being poured in a bowl. Listening to a Primo! album is like having a conversation with your best friend, you walk away feeling like you can face anything and that you’ve totally got this! Life’s a bunch of choices, make the right decision and buy this record.

Something I’ve always really loved in Primo’s music is the clean guitar; what inspired you towards this sound?

VIO: We enjoy experimenting with different guitar sounds including distortion, pitch shift and chorus, but the clean guitar is great because it contrasts with those harsher or stranger guitar sounds and provides a grounding for the song, particularly a clean rhythm guitar. 

What got you writing for your new record Sogni?

XANTHE: We had a burst of writing over the summer of 2018/19… from memory we kind of set a challenge to try and come up with some new songs because we had been tinkering away for a while without having anything particularly concrete. Most of the songs are really of a time for this reason. There were a lot of changes going on for all of us – break ups, moving homes, starting new jobs and other life decisions. We focused on the theme of decision making as a starting point for the songs … like how do people make decisions and why, acknowledging that there is not always a choice and external factors force change as well. Not all of the demos made it onto the album and it’s a loose theme but that is what got us writing.

Sogni is an Italian word and translates to “dreams”; where did the album’s title come from?

VIO: I was researching Italian words, looking up what certain English words translate to and the idea of dreams came up because of our song ‘Reverie’. When I saw the word ‘sogni’ I liked it because it also kind of looked like the word ‘song’ and I thought dreams really related to a lot of the themes on the record like decision making and matters of the heart because they are things you imagine, dream of or hope for.

This record was collectively written during rehearsals and developed further in a live setting; is there a particular song on the record that took an unexpected turn during that process from where it began that you can tell us about?

VIO: The song ‘Rolling Stone’ took a bit of an unexpected turn during recording. Towards the end of the song we hadn’t quite finalised what we would do, so Amy added the layers of saxophone and I think it really takes the song to a different place than where it starts. Love Amy’s saxophone playing! 

The vocal harmonies in Primo are always so frickin’ cool; how do you approach harmonising in your songs?

VIO: We all really like singing together and have a lot of fun trying out different harmonies or ideas for vocals. Often we sing the same thing in unison with slight differences but on this record we tried to work out harmonies in a bit more of a concrete way, which the recording process helped with as we could listen back to things to hear what worked.

What’s your favourite song on Sogni; can you tell us a little bit about it please?

XANTHE: I think ‘Comedy Show’ and ‘1000 Words’ are two of my faves, I like how they turned out. I like the composition of these songs especially the way the saxophone, keys/synths weave into Primo!’s normal instrumentation. 

The final track on your album “Reverie” feels really intimate; what did you tap into to create that mood?

VIO: ‘Reverie’ does have a different mood than our other songs, I think we tapped into the moment of all being there together. From memory, it was the last song we recorded on the day, and I don’t think we had rehearsed it prior to the recording, it was just an idea I had demoed at home. We worked out our approach to playing it while we were in the studio, sitting around in a circle. Later on I added some keys and Xanthe overdubbed some beautiful violin. 

One of the themes that are broached on the record is practicalities of work and daily life; how do you balance your creative life verses the daily grind?

XANTHE: I find the tension of being busy with work and stuff is weirdly conducive to being productive creatively. If I’m working hard at a job or study I tend to value the free time I have more when and know what I want to do with it, which is usually to play, write or record music. Having said that I’ve never really done it any other way. It would be interesting to have a full year of just working on music without doing another thing such as work or study. Maybe we would write five albums or maybe we would struggle to write one… We may never know!

What’s one of your biggest challenges in regards to your creativity? 

XANTHE: I’m really missing being able to play music with Vi, Suz and Amy in person.  I am also doing a law degree at the moment which puts a bit more pressure on the balance I talked about in the question above, it’s a lot of work but I’m loving it and have music plans for the next Uni holiday… looking forward to that.

The world is in such a weird and uncertain place right now, it could be easy to feel a little down with everything that’s going on, isolation etc.; what’s something that never fails in cheering you up?

VIO: Going for a walk and seeing nature, even something growing in someone’s garden, really cheers me up.

Please check out: PRIMO! Primo! on Instagram. Sogni available now via Anti Fade Records.