LORENZO SENNI

Deconstructing trance

As a teen, Lorenzo Senni inhabited the hardcore punk scene. Drums were his choice of instrument, yet the Rimini-based student took a diagnostic approach to rhythmical composition. This developed further at university, where Senni studied the electronic pioneers and became fascinated by dance music culture, notably the nascent trance scene.

Labelling himself a ‘rave voyeur’, Senni became absorbed by trance music’s hedonism. In his desire to capture the genre’s euphoric principles, the producer began experimenting with song structures, resulting in the beatless, staccato-driven Quantum Jelly (2012). His latest album, Scacco Matto, further refines Senni’s deconstructive approach, taking dance music into newly explored territories.

How did you transition from punk to the music you make today?

“It was a gradual thing. In my teenage years I was playing in punk and hardcore bands and the local scene was good. I grew up near Bologna where there’s always been a good scene with a lot of bands coming through, so like many kids I started to practice guitar, play in local bands and at a certain point developed my taste in music by encountering math rock and noise rock. Unfortunately, there weren’t many people around me that wanted to play that kind of music, so I learned drums because I couldn’t find a drummer to join my project.”

In terms of learning drums, you took a more analytical approach?

“I started to study drums pretty hard, and for many hours a day, with a famous old jazz player in Italy. I say that drums saved my life because I learned a lot of discipline through the instrument. Then around 19 or 20 I went to university to study musicology, which taught me the theory behind composers like Bach and why they were considered geniuses. I also discovered pioneers of electronic music like Iannis Xenakis and David Tudor. There were people at university who were also into that music, so I discovered a world that I hadn’t considered before. A lot of my colleagues with that background started DJing quite early, but I got into synthesisers more slowly and started to program my own software using stuff like Max/MSP and Supercollider.”

What do you think lies behind your scientific approach to instrumentation?

“A lot of that is because of the context of where I grew up. When I was studying musicology I was learning what the musicians were doing, the choices they made and how they justified those choices. It wasn’t about using a sound or musical solution just because they liked it, there was a concept or idea behind the choices they made, based on something they’d been developing for years. Because of that, when I started making my own music I wanted to both limit myself and find answers to why I was exploring a particular direction. Especially when I started to discover the club world, rave and trance music. Having never been involved in it, I wanted to find out what I could do with the music in relation to where I was coming from. So, right from the beginning, this way of thinking has been part of the process for me.”

Your music is labelled ‘trance’, but you wouldn’t typically think of your new album Scacco Matto as a dance album. Was your ambition to redefine the genre?

“Some of my friends were going to clubs when trance and gabba were huge at the time. I was exposed to that music but didn’t care for what I was listening to. I never used drugs or alcohol, so I was experiencing club culture from the point of view of someone being completely sober, which was almost crazier in a way. When I later rediscovered the trance genre, I found it quite interesting sonically – the sound was very rich and had an emotional feeling. I also found that I was really into the progression from the breakdown to the build-up, because I felt that was where the artists were really expressing their personality. Some of those producers were minimalistic and others were more aggressive or had a counterpoint style, but the idea was to make my own version, so I started to experiment with the Roland JP-8000 synthesiser.”

What did those early experiments sound like?

“I was making my own version based on trance build-ups but the result was way less trancey because I wanted to approach things using my experimental background and studies in musicology. In the end, it doesn’t really sound like trance and while people think I’m a trance expert I’m really not. I went through thousands of tracks because I was interested by certain elements of the music and from that I gained a cultural understanding of the genre, but if I wanted to make a trance record I would embrace it in a different way.”

It’s written that you infuriated crowds by playing trance build-ups without giving them the satisfaction of the drop. What did that teach you about modern expectations?

“That was very interesting for me. Having not come from a purely dancefloor-oriented world I didn’t really expect the reaction I got in certain situations. People got really angry with me but I thought it was interesting to see how people’s brains work and how they’re programmed to respond to the inputs that music gives them, especially in a context where you know the dynamics. In a dance club, you know the music is building up and you’ll get a release at a certain point with the drop, but if you don’t get that your brain starts to get a bit crazy. People thought I was taking the piss, but that wasn’t the point – the point was to create something out of the build-up. It does make you think about how EDM pushes the

build-up and the drop to the maximum. It’s like capitalism where we always want to consume everything faster. In the ’90s, trance had a three-minute build-up followed by three minutes of the track, now with EDM we have a 30-second build-up, a 15-second drop, then another build-up and everything’s gone to the extreme.”

So everything gets pushed to the limit, then people get bored and want something else?

“Exactly, and it makes you think about how we consume entertainment nowadays. When you’re waiting for something and get that thing, you get bored very early, so you need another build-up. For me, I thought, if you have an infinite build-up, you can enter that mood and enjoy it forever. This was the initial idea behind my music, till I developed it and went in a more song-oriented direction.”

Does your approach come from being in a punk band, where the whole ethos is disruption?

“I need to be challenged and this comes from my background in punk music because I really like to be onstage and for people in the audience to feel a sense of confrontation, but not in a negative way. With punk and hardcore, the band was spitting on the crowd and stagediving so you had this energy colliding. For me, it’s very important to produce a reaction in the listener. For example, a track might have a long 16-bar build-up and end up turning into something brutal or I’ll prefer not to have an intro at all and just get straight to the point. That comes from my background playing in bands. ”

Did it require courage to not take the road most followed? Would you encourage that in others?

“For me, either you do something closely related to a genre or you follow your personal direction and go ahead with that. That’s especially difficult at first when you don’t have much interest in doing something other than what might financially support you. I see young artists who may have good ideas but they don’t have the strength of character to do what they really believe in, so I’m happy that I’ve had the integrity to unconsciously do what I felt and now have something that I hope sounds like me. I don’t pretend to have made a new genre; I just do my thing.”

Drums are usually an essential element of dance music, so what’s the idea behind replacing them with other rhythmic elements?

“At the beginning it was very simple. Taking the trance build-ups as a reference, I noticed they had no drums, so at least that was something I didn’t have to care about. Having too much choice can be a problem sometimes, so building something that enabled me to avoid making choices was good. I took the same approach to sound. At the start, 99% of trance was made with the Roland JP-8000, so I thought I’d get the JP-8000 and just use that. I have to say it became a challenge to make something rhythmically groovy that had no drums, but that restriction helped me push other sides of my music. For example, I had to explore ways of sequencing the synth stab so it was dynamic enough to have a groove. As a drummer, I believed that I could build rhythms without drums and now it’s become a signature of mine.”

By not using drums, you’re removing a whole range of what would be typical dance music frequencies. As you’re replacing them with stab sounds, are you dual layering them to add the bass elements?

“My music doesn’t have a huge low end and I don’t use a wide range of sounds, so I spend a lot of time on the few sounds I do use and tend to layer quite a few things. It’s all in the stab. I‘ll often layer a low stab with a higher one and add some other bass stabs. I don’t really want to have a big low-end because I like a dry sound, but I do have to take care of the frequency ranges.”

A track like XBreakingEdgeX almost sounds like a 1980s computer game…

“It’s weird because I’ve found a lot of people say that. I understand why because looking at my music as an outsider I see it, but video game music wasn’t an influence. I agree that there are some 8-bit elements there, but when people say that to me, I almost get offended. I don’t have anything against that style of music, but sometimes when you make

“I don’t pretend to have made a new genre; I just do my thing”

music from a different point of view you take a road that goes very close to another style of music without realising it.”

Presumably, the repetitive, syncopated rhythms that you build into tracks can’t be played real-time. Are they sampled then worked on in the DAW?

“I’m a bit crazy because I have six Roland JP-8000s, although three of them are the JP-8080 rack version. I control all of them using Max/MSP to make sequences that don’t need much work done to them when I’m editing. I don’t usually sample sounds; maybe there was one sample on the record using the Ensoniq ASR-10, otherwise everything you hear is sequenced and some of the repetitive elements have a strong gate created by mistakes while the JP-8000 was sequencing. Both machines have the ability to record patterns in real time, so I developed a method using the integrated gate and staccato to get these very sharp, syncopated rhythms. Of course, I added that to Logic, but most of the ideas were created using the synths with Max/MSP sequencing them via MIDI.”

How important is Max/MSP to your creative method. Could the sequencing functionality be replicated without that software?

“Max/MSP is integral to how I compose, although maybe somebody else could send messages to the synthesisers using other instruments. After using Max/MSP for many years, I know how to build and develop patterns and make changes. The software’s very handy because I can open something that I’ve built before and that’s become part of my whole process. It’s not crazy in terms of complexity – it’s all data rather than sound, but you can make crazy things using MIDI. When I’m using the Roland gear, I want to make mistakes and force things a bit.”

With so many staccato rhythms encircling each other on the tracks, presumably you have to be quite careful about adding effects?

“I’m very concerned about using delays and reverbs. I wanted a very clean sound that doesn’t have too much mud around it, so I want it to flow and be dynamic but also sound rigid, and I’m always fighting between these aspects. A lot of the patterns and stabs are taken from muted guitar patterns used in hardcore music. An ambient track like Canone Infinito needs that glue between the elements, but other tracks don’t really work with too much reverb or delay.”

Are you running the Roland machines through outboard rather than processing synth effects in the box?

“It depends. I have an API Lunchbox module, two preamps and two equalisers, which a friend gave to me because he said, man, you can’t go straight from the synths into your interface. That’s what I always used to do, but now I like to have some gain to play with. I also have an Akai MFC42 filter, which is the same stereo filter that they use in the Akai MPC.”

We’re guessing the JP-8000 also has its own built in effects?

“The Roland JP-8000 has a delay in itself and as that’s integrated into the machine it works well with the characteristic of the sound. So if I need delay I’ll use that one and if I need reverb I’ll use a few reverbs in Logic. Some of the lead sounds on the album are made with the Access Virus TI Snow, which also has a reverb integrated into the synth. 100% of the sounds are coming from recorded sessions with my synths, so if I want to change something most of the time I’ll just re-record it and use the effects that are integrated into them.”

What in-the-box tools are you using?

“I’m using a few things in Logic, like Decapitator to make lead sounds more saturated or crunchy and I also use FabFilter for EQ and gating. Basically, I want to arrive at mixing and editing with a sound that I’m already very happy with, so the recording needs to be pretty ready because I don’t want to change too much in Logic afterwards. I use GRM Tools quite a lot if I want to make something sound crazy or create some subtle or weird effect. I’m not somebody that feels the need to try everything on the market; it’s too easy to get lost in all the instruments that are available now.”

The Roland gear seems so integral to your sound. Can you imagine life without them?

“I hope I’ll find the same enthusiasm that I have for these machines in some other instrument but for now they’re an essential part of my sound. A few years ago I used them 100%, but I wanted to develop my sound and try other things so I’ve included the Virus TI Snow for a few things and the old Ensoniq ASR-10 for sampling. I’ll leave the Roland JP-8000 and 8080s behind one day if they no longer satisfy me, but right now I still feel there’s more to explore because they often go crazy and make mistakes.”

You do have a few other hardware synths. What role do they play?

“The Roland Juno-6 has a very peculiar sound and a good presence. It’s also quite aggressive, so I use it for layering stabs. The only other hardware synth I have is the Alesis A6 Andromeda, but to be honest I don’t use it much because it’s the sort of synthesiser that wants to be a protagonist. I use the Roland TB-303 sometimes for bass sounds and wish I could use it more, but I’m a bit careful because lots of people have already mastered the 303. I’m a big fan of Plastikman and Daft Punk and really respect the instrument, so if I’m going to use that it needs to be done in a good way and I hope to explore it more when I have the time.”

We understand you used Canone Infinito for an installation at a hospital in Bergamo?

“I did this installation two years ago at the intensive care unit of what is now one of the busiest hospitals in Italy due to the virus emergency. The hospital in Bergamo has been one of the most afflicted areas. At the time it had a lot of art inside it, so they asked me to make a permanent sound installation in the corridor of the intensive care unit. At first this corridor was only used by the hospital crew, but they realised that parents and friends always wanted to wait there so they could be closer to loved ones. We made this sound installation, which played for two minutes every hour, and I decided to make a melody that was not too happy or sad because it’s being played in a very ‘heavy’ section of the hospital.”

What was the technical process behind it?

“Technically, the installation was built by a top Italian company that makes some of the most insane-sounding auditoriums in Italy and Europe. They had four speakers in each corner that you cannot see because they look like Wi-Fi boxes. They cover 100 metres of corridor and the volume doesn’t really change from the corner to the middle, so it’s incredible how they managed to achieve that.”

You’ve signed to Warp for this album. Do you think that’ll change how you’re perceived?

“Now Covid-19 has happened, all my plans have fallen apart, but I can see myself going to London and the UK and things coming together in terms of promotion and how my music is consumed. In Italy, the economy around music is not very good, but I sometimes wish I had more time to spend in the studio to explore my work. My previous album was made in 2016 and now it’s 2020. I was lucky enough that my Persona EP was well-received and I was able to play it live for many years, but the gigs became fewer and fewer and at some point I realised I had to release something new.”

Do you feel that musicians are forced to play live for purely financial reasons?

“Being honest, I love to play live, probably because I’ve been on stage since I was young and it’s a big part of music for me. I’m not shy about being up there in front of people, but it’s also true that there’s no other way that artists can survive.”

Because of the way you make music, are you able to play live in an improvised way?

“I’ve found a way to play my records, but can’t fuck around too much because before I made Quantum Jelly in 2012 all my music was made using Max/MSP patches. It was all improvised and very abstract and I was only playing in front of 20 people. When you start playing to between 1,000 and 3,000 people, you have to present your art in a much better way and there are technical aspects that need to be considered for that environment. I only bring the JP-8080 rack version out with me and sometimes I’ll build my live set in a way that I can only interact with a track by around 15%; other times I’ll have a section where 80% is improvised. I build my live set in Logic using separated tracks with the audio interface going into separate channels in a Midas Venice 16-channel analogue mixing console. From there, I’ll add some effects in Logic.”