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Ufomammut Interview with Urlo: The Low End at the Height of Heavy, OR: Three Letters That Spell Doom

Italian trio Ufomammut are the best drone doom band in the world. There, I said it.

Months after the fact, I still hear something new in their latest album, Eve (released through their own Supernatural Cat imprint), every single time I listen to it, and where so much drone feels bent on keeping the listener as far from the action as possible, Ufomammut engulfs your ears, and your mind, in torrents of undulating psychedelia, brutalizing repetition to the point of near-madness. By the time you come around to the conclusion of Eve‘s five tracks, you can’t believe only 45 minutes has passed, the album has had you so hypnotized. It’s like going through a wormhole.

Comprised of singly-named guitarist Poia, bassist/vocalist Urlo (both also handle synth and sundry noises) and drummer Vita, Ufomammut also operates as a graphic arts collective under the moniker Malleus, and their unique visual style has become a lasting part of the stoner/doom aesthetic over the course of the last decade, doing album covers for bands like Nebula, Baby Woodrose and Bongzilla and posters for even higher profile acts like the Melvins, Robert Plant, The Cure and the Roadburn festival, where Ufomammut laid waste to a crowd hungry for more in 2009.

But more than anything, Eve feels like the culmination of where Ufomammut‘s progression over the course of their five albums (plus one collaborative improvisation record with countrymen Lento) has been leading. Its creative expanse accommodates both huge riffs and minimalist noise, sounding like a transmission from whichever planet is about to destroy our own while also remaining memorable and loaded with sonic pummel. It is one of the best albums of 2010 and no one out there does what Ufomammut does better than Ufomammut does it.

After the jump, please find enclosed my email Q&A with Urlo, who explains some of how Eve came together and what inspired his band to take on such an ambitious project in the first place. Enjoy.

Where did the idea for making Eve one long song come from? Was there something specific that made you want to do it, or did it just feel like the next logical step coming off of Idolum?

The first idea was to work on a record structured and inspired by “Meddle,” by Pink Floyd, so a long song and five shorter satellites.

The only mistake has been to start working on the long song, and then, when we noticed it was growing longer and longer, we decided to work on only one piece. We split it in five movements to make it easy for the listening.

And to be honest, even if with our previous albums we meshed one song into the other (I mean, there were songs but our albums always need a complete listening). We think this is the most focused of our career.

Eve came out naturally, though. Even if there was a project, it was not a “real” one. Eve is what we need to do now.

How did the writing process compare to past albums? Were the parts come up with separately?

Before starting the working process of Eve, we listened to some old unpublished crap Poia and Urlo did with their previous band Judy Corda. We focused on one song called “?.” It was an instrumental song, very cool. It became the rough beginning and the end of Eve, we worked a lot around it to make it fit, but this was the beginning. Then every part grew one into the other naturally, like it was all written in our minds.

It took about a couple of months to write Eve, when we entered the studio with Lorenzo Stecconi in Roma, it was clear what we wanted.

How did you decide where to split the tracks up? Was there something that made you go that route instead of having it all as one long track?

The song is one, but it seems that there are five main movements in Eve, flowing one into each other. We were thinking about people listening to the song. It’s always a little boring when you’d like to listen again to one part of a long song and you have to search for it with a CD player.

What do you think repetition brings to the parts of Eve? What has always struck me about Ufomammut is that you guys can drone without being boring or inactive. Do you think about building parts on other parts, or is it just what comes out of jamming?

For Eve we tried to focus more on dynamics. We had those riffs jamming, but we wanted to reach the “climax” slowly, in a sort of “progression,” working with volume and different sounds, slight changes of tempos.

How did Eve finally get pieced together?

We recorded the song in our rehearsal room, in a rough way, just for have the chance to listen to it, trying to understand timing and changes.

What was the recording process like? How much of the album was done live, as opposed to being overdubbed later?

We had the main structure of Eve, so we started in recording drums, playing a guide track, and then we added everything else

How much do you add to a song once the basic tracks are down? There’s always a lot of noise and extra sounds happening, how planned out are those beforehand?

We left a “range of unplanned,” holes we can eventually fill under the mood of the moment with solos and extra noises.

In terms of the album art, is it harder to make art for your own work or easier?

It can be very hard! We don’t know what we want. :-)

You went kind of minimalist with the Eve cover, or at least the logo for the album art if not the slip-cover of the CD. What was it about that design that appealed to you specifically? What inspired you in terms of visuals?

We often go minimalist with Supernatural Cat covers. Posters are usually more complicated. Eve’s cover is both: there’s the Eve logo, a woman with snakes instead of hairs, like Medusa, coming out from an eye. But there’s a sort of sun/planet made of moving snakes in the background. It’s always the same story, the opposites…

Now that you’re making albums, doing the art and putting them out on your own label, how does it feel to be a fully self-contained band? Are there times you wish you could pass the buck to someone else?

Yes, sometimes it happens, but we realize that we need to work on our thing by ourselves, for being really satisfied. And sometimes this is not enough!

Any chance Ufomammut will be coming to the US for shows? How was your experience here last time?

It’s not depending on us. It seems lots of people would like to see Ufomammut in the USA, but there’s not a single booking agent interested. We don’t have plans for now, though. Last time was great, really great.

Any other plans or closing words you want to mention?

We’ve a new Twitter account where you can follow us (the name is ufomammutmafia — just to remember we’re from Italy), a new website, we’re on tour and we’ll be till October. Then we’ll start in working on the next album.

Ufomammut’s website

Ufomammut on Twitter

Supernatural Cat

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5 Responses to “Ufomammut Interview with Urlo: The Low End at the Height of Heavy, OR: Three Letters That Spell Doom”

  1. Talked to them at their yesterday’s gig @ Poznan (Poland). Really cool guys, strictly convinced about what they wanna do with their sound.

  2. Gaia says:

    Seeing them in Bristol in October! Very excited.

  3. Woody says:

    Mingya! No questions about what these guys like to eat?

  4. Fuckin Gamboa says:

    I’ve seen these guys eat , not a pretty picture . Best coffee makers in the world though …I hope they come back to SF

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