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Topic: Mangala VallisPosted By: toroddfuglesteg
Subject: Mangala Vallis
Date Posted: May 03 2011 at 12:30
MANGALA VALLIS is a new progressive rock band from Italy, whose members are three well-experienced musicians: Gigi Cavalli Cocchi (drums), Enzo Cattini (keyboards) and Mirco Consolini (guitar and bass). Completely in love with the sound of the early 70's, MANGALA VALLIS is influenced by the music of that golden era, even if its music is filtered through its own taste and vision. Some symphonic prog lovers will notice that they mix styles of vintage GENESIS and GENTLE GIANT, while adding some Fish-era MARILLION and SPOCK's BEARD influences.
I got in touch with the band and their drummer Gigi Cavalli Cocchi patiently answered my questions.
When, where and by whom was your band born ? Did
any of you, past and present members, play in any other bands before joining up
in your band ? Why did you choose that name ?
The band was born at the end of the '90s from an idea
of mine, that came throughout the years from my love for '70s prog rock, the
msuic that I grew up with. Even if we were more or less kids at the time, me and
the other two founder members of Mangala Vallis used to have a band back then,
and we did compose material though we never recorded any album. In 1989 I became
the drummer of one of the biggest mainstream rockstars in Italy, Luciano
Ligabue, an artist that sold millions of copies and played hundreds of live
shows; then I played for six years in the most important alternative band in
Italy, C.S.I. (not active anymore). These experiences led me to acquire a deep
knowledge of the sonic universe and its inner mechanic. So I was a fulfilled
professional player, but the only piece missing in my personal mosaic was to
make that adolescent dream come true, since I never lst my taste for prog rock;
so in 1998 I contacted Mirco Consolini and Enzo Cattini, respectively guitarist
and keboardist of my old band, and I asked them if they wanted as much as I did
to get back to what we left in the '70s. The name Mangala Vallis, that stroke me
as soon as I read it, comes from the novel Sphera by Michael Crichton and is one
of the biggest canyons on Mars' surface.
Over to your two albums. Your debut album The Book
of Dreams was released in 2002. Please tell us more about this
album.
“The book of dreams” had
a very long gestation and a lot of material was dismissed before we picked what
became the album. It sums up all that us three are in out intimate musical
feelings, the music we love. A few tracks were written in the '70s and was
rearranged. Globally we meant to keep faithful to a concept of writing and
sounding as in the '70s, to stay close to our roots. Also choosing the
instruments was very severe, we only have Hammond, Synth Minimoog e Mellotron on
that album, the real ones! No sampled sound on our debut album. The story
told in the concept come from a myth of our era: Jules Verne, and tells the
story of man as in one of his novels' fantastic
travellings.
Your second album Lycanthrope was released in
2005. Please tell us more about this album.
With “Lycanthrope” mant
things had changed in the band, Bernardo Lanzetti (ex P.F.M. E Acqua fragile)
was no more a guest but he had become a real member of the band, and this was a
very important development for us all. It is a more complex album, less direct
than the first, and it tells (Bernardo wrote all the lyrics in English) of a man
who decides he's done with the habits of a programmed life, a "politically
perfect" life, and that he wants to get back to a more primordial and
instinctive existence. Thus his transformation in wolf is not as in horror
movies, but on the contrary, it is a peaceful and even saving moment of his
life, a comeback to is original essence, the primordial man who listens to his
heart.From this record on,
Riccardo Sgavetti on the bass and Nicola Milazzo on the guitars become fixed
members of Mangala Vallis.
A DVD called Intergalactic Video Archives was
released in 2009. Please tell us more about this DVD.
“Intergalactic...” is the most beautiful display of what we are
like live. It is a document, that we kept rough on purpose, in a good sense. We
did not do any audio post production, just a little balancing of the volumes
since the filming came from different recordings. It is a perfect picture of our
live universe.
You have
chosen to sing in English instead of in your mothertongue. Why English vocals
instead of Italian vocals ?
Because our way of writing music fits in better with
English. We wrote one track in Italian, and I love it: it is part of the rock
opera Canossa, a project that we made together wiht other prog Italian bands,
but we never ended up writing a track with similar characteristics, maybe it
will be so in the future, but not in the next album for sure.
Your music has been described as a mix of Genesis
and Spock's Beard. But how would you describe you music and which bands would
you compare yourself with ?
I think that we could not get any better definition,
since those are our actual influences. Genesis are what we have in common,
thinking of the past, and Spock’s Beard are surely a band that we love among new
prog. Personally I have a great admiration for Neal Morse, but also for Steven
Wilson: they both are geniuses. Surely you can tell listening to our two albums.
But many new things happened musically speaking in the meantime, so our sound
evolved.
What have you been up to since 2005 and what is
your latest update ? What is your plans for this year and beyond ?
As I said before, in the past few years many things happened
and the band had to find a new balance. Two years ago I founded a label with
Cristiano Roversi of Moongarden, the label's name is Distilleria Music Factory
( http://www.distilleriamusicfactory.it/" rel="nofollow - )
and we made a number of productions. In the meantime Enzo, our keyboardist, left
the band because he had too many personal engagements and Cristiano stepped in
as his substitute. Destiny then called me as drummer of Moongarden, summoned by
Cristiano, to tour on their new album “A vulgar display of prog”. All these
things brought Mangala to dilute enormously the making of our third album.
Nowadays also Nicola and Cristiano are involved in the composition and for
Nicola it's a first. So surely the new album will be different. It will be a
concept again, though we originally didn't plan on this. The music are all
written already, and I have an idea about its concept that I like a lot. We wish
to finish it for the end of 2011.
To wrap up this interview, is there anything you
want to add to this interview ?
In the meantime we'll release an album that has a lot to do
with us, though with a separate identity: a project called “CCLR”: Cavalli
Cocchi, Lanzetti, Roversi, an album that saw the involvement of many great
guitarists such as Steve Hackett, Aldo Tagliapietra(Le Orme) and Tony Sidney
(Perigeo). To be released very soon!
Thank you to Gigi Cavalli Cocchi for this interview
Their PA profile is http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=452" rel="nofollow - and homepage's http://www.mangalavallis.it" rel="nofollow -
Replies: Posted By: seventhsojourn
Date Posted: May 03 2011 at 13:03
Fans of the Mellotron might want to have a listen to these guys.
Posted By: memowakeman
Date Posted: May 03 2011 at 16:26
Yeah.
And I like when the artists anwer like this, informative and entertaining.