ATŌMI is the project of Italian musician, composer and producer Lorenzo Setti. According to his bio, Exploring the world of frequencies, always bordering between sound and images, he creates soundtracks, installations and A/V live shows. The nuances belonging to the compositions are manifold and fluctuate between an oneiric vision, sometimes gloomy and sometimes dreamy, that turns the attention of the listener towards higher and immaterial planes, and what could be called an almost concrete and deeply visceral sound saturation.
Ambient, space, noise, glitch, sound art, syncopated rhythms, often transmuted into melodies and saturations, pushed almost at the limit of sound deconstruction, are surely genres and approaches that can describe his music without however exhaustively define the contours, because of the intrinsic changing nature of the path and search that characterise the ATŌMI project.
Back in 2020, he has released ARMØNIA, the first of three concept Eps which he will release via Japanese label Jikken Records. The interest in science and ancient writings led the artist to translate into music a path that starts from the frequencies obtained from the orbits of the planets of the solar system. A musical research that goes beyond the stringent scientific research and tries to connect to the spiritual and philosophical world through the use of symbology.
Every track comes with a video curated by 5 different artists. Today we have the pleasure to share the official, powerful video of the track “OM” which was directed by Matteo Gatti and Lorenzo Tavernari. The previous one were directed by Alessandra Leone, Carlo Fanchini, Cugeeno Benatti, Chiara De Maria.
He explains about the track and the video: “The track is related to the frequency of the Earth year and has a strong symbology as fundament (symbols don’t have to be explained but seen and experienced) both symbols and frequency have inspired the directors to symbolically represents the planet Earth through the passing of seasons and the human struggle to accept and understand life, themselves and each other.”
Watch the video here and check our chat with the artist who tell us more about the new EP, the role of the visual art for his music, the thoughts about the current situation and more.
“ARMØNIA” is the first of three concept Eps which you will release. Can you tell us more about the whole project?
What I started with the composition of these three Eps is an act of research, to synthesize the experiences of all my lives.
I approached the concept of frequencies through various readings on Pythagoras and the post Pythagoreans, Galileo, Kepler, etc.. giving more value to intuition and emotions than to the scientific parts.
Later, by having this knowledge processed by my subconscious, thanks to what I learnt from the readings by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Giordano Bruno, I established a link between symbols of different cultures and philosophies.
My intention is to cross the wall of speech and consciousness, to dialogue directly with our subconscious and emotional part.
The most fascinating and interesting thing is that everything is continuously evolving, giving life to new and unexpected paths.
Every tracks comes with 5 different videos. It’s something which tries to connect the music with the visual language. How much important is the visual part for your music and how did you develop the EP, the choice of the different directors, and so on…?
To have different videos connected to the tracks has been a little dream since the beginning.
Thanks to Chiara De Maria, Stefano Benatti, Alessandra Leone, Carlo Fanchini and Matteo Gatti it came to life.
I decided to ask them to collaborate with the aim of letting express their unique style and approach by applying their latest researches and visions.
The incredible thing is that even if the aesthetic and approach are completely different to each other and each artist has worked without knowing anything from the others, there’s a very strong connection between the five videos.
They broadened the horizons of my conceptual music translating its inner and hidden messages, through their own visual symbology, into something new.
The Artwork of Serjan Burlak is very interesting and powerful. How did you choose it?
I saw the beautiful creations and researches made by Serjan Burlak aka Biogenic and I instantly fell in love with them!
The cover of ARMØNIA embodies all the aesthetic and conceptual elements of my project.
Its minimal aesthetic, geometric yet so organic, speaks of an evolutionary and ascending future, represented by an embryo inscribed in the golden spiral, that carries in itself all the genes of a new future.
Let’s talk about the current situation. How are you living these strange times and what are the main concerns as an artist?
As artist but firstly as a human being I feel mostly concerned about the impact that this situation is having on nature, I thought we were on a good way before the current turning point or I should say almost u-turn to the “plastic/pollution era”.
This situation gave us time to reflect on how we live our lives and what can or can’t be really necessaire for our daily routine. Now it’s our turn to make the difference.
We need to remember that human life is equally important to all the other living beings.
Do you have an idea of live shows for these Eps when the situation will change?
I can’t wait to share again those magic moments and vibes with a crowd! I decided to not playing live show on-line until now, waiting to bring the videos and tracks of ARMØNIA live in front of a crowd.
I don’t want to reveal too much but my intention for the live shows is to resume the fundamental concept of the EP, the path of initiatory ascension to a new of perceiving our lives, subdividing in three “slightly different” phases: reset, connect and release.
Ritual question. Have you seen or heard anything good recently?
Yes, the most beautiful thing that I heard recently is the incredible silence of the streets without humans nor vehicles around, in the middle of the city.
A silence that makes you ask to yourself if society has really existed before or if it was just a nightmare, that silence that slowly become a complete and complex ensemble of sounds, melodies and rhythms. Simply beautiful. The latest album by Abul Mogard “In Immobile Air” could be a great soundtrack for this planetary moment.