When IKITAN came to life, in October 2019, the band couldn’t
imagine what kind of situation they would have had to face in a few months’
time. 2020 has been a hell of a year and IKITAN came up with the
structure for a lengthier-than-usual song, composed of three chapters, by
May-June. Once they were back in the rehearsal room, the band decided
to close this first cycle of its history, and independently record and release
their debut EP.
“We created an instrumental 20-minute long song, which is quite unusual for a debut EP, by simply giving shape to what we were playing in an unplanned manner in the rehearsal room. We came up with the idea of publishing a nice digipack with a free poster in the physical edition as a way of conferring dignity to our musical project,” says Frik Et, bassist of IKITAN.
“The idea of a longer song came about when we were imagining playing it live, start to finish, and announce it as: ‘this is our journey, come and follow us’,” continues Frik Et.
IKITAN’s music is very unplanned, meaning that all the riffs and ideas heard in the album happened to be played by the band during jam sessions.
“None of us offers complete songs or definitive ideas to the other guys. We always let music guide us and improvisation plays a key role too. It’s a totally free approach to music,” continues Luca Nash Nasciuti, guitarist of IKITAN.
“We play instrumental rock music influenced by post-rock, post-metal, prog rock, heavy metal, grunge, stoner… you name it. Not having a vocalist gives us total freedom from the intro-verse-chorus-repeat approach.
IKITAN is our opportunity to experiment and put together a whole range of styles and influences,” concludes Enrico Meloni, drummer of IKITAN.
“Twenty-Twenty” was recorded in the Summer of 2020 in Genoa, Italy.
Drums were recorded at Greenfog Studio, where the album was also mastered. Greenfog Studio is owned by Mattia Cominotto and it stands out as one of the most prominent and renowned studios in Italy for rock artists. Bass and guitar were recorded at guitarist Luca Nash Nasciuti’s private studio, who works as a producer and sound engineer. Luca was also responsible for mixing the album. The impressive artwork of “Twenty-Twenty”, which sees an angry figure, IKITAN, erupting off the Earth while smashing some stones above his head, is curated by Luca Marcenaro. IKITAN is the god of the sound of the stones.
What do people say about “Twenty-Twenty”?
Writing an instrumental seamless suite such as “Twenty-Twenty” is not an easy choice. IKITAN manage to do it successfully, and the song itself is never predictable nor poorly written. Each and every arrangement nicely flows without ever making it hard to keep on listening to the song.
“Twenty-Twenty” is a visionary dreamlike piece of work…
highly recommended!
- Diego Banchero, bass player of dark-prog band Il Segno del Comando and ex-Malombra
IKITAN’s debut “Twenty-Twenty” is easy to listen to despite being a 20-minute long instrumental song.
It seems to me like a song that was built to be played live. I was reminded of bands such as Tool or Opeth as the same
patterns get repeated multiple times. If I had to rate “Twenty-Twenty”, I’d give it 8 out of 10.
- Marco Basetta Sulas, bass player of London-based band Gramma Vedetta
“Twenty-Twenty” is available as a digital album to download on Bandcamp and it can also be bought as a limited-edition (200 copies) digipack with a free poster (available from December 2020).
Find IKITAN on:
Bandcamp - Facebook - YouTube - Instagram - Twitter
IKITAN is:
Luca Nash Nasciuti: guitar and effects
Frik Et: bass and effects
Enrico Meloni: drums and cowbell
