Pippo Corvino: “Today my instinct—probably because the world has become a very noisy place—leads me to play more quietly and fewer tones”

Six years have passed since our last conversation. You were very productive during that period. Albums, singles, collaborations... and the music you release changes and grows. To begin with, can you tell us about the processes that take place between the idea, the recording, and the release of an album?

It all depends on the type of project. For example, projects that are recorded live, where a lot of things happen through improvisation and the interaction of the musicians, often have a very simple process that practically boils down to writing compositions and going to the studio, sometimes without a lot of rehearsals if the musicians know each other very well musically, as was the case with the album "How Far Is the Moon" or "Mild". However, the processes can be much longer and more complex if the music demands it, as was the case with the projects "In Traverse" or "Pilgrim's Dream", which, although they have improvised parts, do not rely on improvisation; they are mostly composed and mostly performed as written. Such projects combine live performance on acoustic and electric instruments with programmed, virtual instruments, some of which are already prepared before recording, and some of which are added later in post-production. Working on such projects reminds me a lot of filming scenes for movies in front of a green screen.

The first stage is “fishing”; collecting ideas that usually appear spontaneously and unexpectedly. These are often pieces of musical motifs that could potentially become part of a larger form, and sometimes they can be much more specific musical content that already has a very specific musical image. Although it is wise to strike while the iron is hot, I often put all these ideas aside with the intention of forgetting them and coming back to them later. "Later" can be in a few days, but it has happened that some sketches remain in the archive for years until they mature—that is, until I mature for them. That setting aside is important because of the next phase, which concerns the objective and critical observation of all those ideas and judging which of them has potential and value in general. I take every idea that seems to me to be the root of a good story and put the rest back in the archive, followed by the research phase; building themes from those small motifs and searching for the appropriate form and orchestration, because some stories can be told in a couple of stanzas with a couple of instruments, while some stories need a longer form or a larger ensemble, or both.

When the selected sketches evolve into compositions, there is usually a stage that involves working with MIDI programming and recording demo versions that have a multiple purpose: to show how the music, when finished, could or should sound, which serves as a compass for me and my colleagues for practicing and as a pilot track later in the recording. After the end of the recording, there is a stage of listening and editing, where I again try to remove the excess from the essence and put together a live performance with subsequently recorded instruments and sometimes some added programmed sequences that add structure, increase the dramatic effect, and play a role in creating the ambience in which the performance takes place. When the material is finally finished, it remains to be seen if it even works as an album, and the sign of that is when the compositions fit well together and act like chapters of the same book. This is usually followed by the process of searching for album and composition titles, which is often a more difficult task for me than anything I have talked about before.

It seems to me that some of the topics you often deal with are change, journey, and questioning—hence the pilgrimage. Can you describe your musical journey, discovery, and upgrade? How different are you as an author today?

I never listen to my music again after it has been finished and released. However, if I ever find myself in a situation where I have to face my older works, it is often hard for me to believe that it was me. I mean the taste and stylistic differences between older and newer works. Sometimes, if I hear something from an old album, I wonder how I could have released such a thing in the first place. Sometimes it is the opposite, and I think that I was much better at certain things when I was younger. I am different than I was even just a couple of years ago, not to mention ten or more. I used to enjoy complex forms and great dynamics, while today my instinct—probably because the world has become a very noisy place—leads me to play more quietly and fewer tones.

Travel is my constant theme. Maybe not so much a topic as a desire and a goal to make my music sound like that, almost like a film soundtrack; to lead the listener through scenes from which they can then guess the story. I do not want to say that each of my compositions really has a specific story or hidden meaning; some really do and some do not at all. My goal has always been for the music to encourage the listener to activate their imagination, think, and freely interpret the meaning of the music. I avoid talking about the origin of my musical ideas and the meanings behind the titles of compositions and albums because many interpretations and experiences of certain listeners were much more interesting to me than my original idea. What the writer wanted to say is not a question that should necessarily be asked of the writer.

We can easily recognize some of the musical influences, be they classical, jazz, or folk-rock details. It seems that the tracks from "In Traverse" and "Pilgrim's Dream" were also influenced by something outside the music world. Can you tell us about the influences and inspirations during their creation?

The influences of the styles you mentioned are there, although they are more related to the manner of playing. The influence and what causes the creation of music are almost always things that are outside the world of music. It can be literally anything. When I work on something, naturally, as a musician, I use tones and sounds. However, in my head, I simultaneously use scenes, sometimes colour spectrums, sometimes concrete images, or even moving images. These are some of the things that act as a compass when writing—like writing music for scenes that are a figment of your imagination.

The names of my compositions often refer to what influenced or inspired the creation of the music. Those titles, especially on the "In Traverse" album, look like chapters in a book; instead of a prelude and postlude, the album starts with a prologue and ends with an epilogue. It is that travel obsession of mine again and the need to sense that travel when reading the tracklist on the back of the album cover.

I have already mentioned that giving titles to compositions and albums is very difficult for me, and compositions often have completely meaningless working titles throughout the work process until the very end. My problem with titles is so great that the album "In Traverse" was already recorded and finished, and the cover design and printing were put on stand-by because I still did not have an album title. In the end, the title "In Traverse" was given by Daniel Domig, a Viennese painter and the author of the design of several of my album covers, explaining to me that the album sounds like you are travelling somewhere, and in the end, when the music ends, you realise that you have not gotten there yet.

In my case, the titles always come after finishing the work on the music and are usually the result of my analysis of my own music and an attempt to somehow, often poetically, explain in words the short story that unfolded in my head during the work. I often find the titles of the compositions and the clarification of my thoughts that occurred during the writing in existing books or films; however, it rarely happens that a specific book or film is the motive for the creation of the music. More and more often, I need other people—musicians, painters...—to explain what I wanted to say.

The album "Pilgrim's Dream" was nominated for the German Record Critics' Award. To clarify for the readers, this is an award given by an independent association of music artists and critics from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Your album was nominated in the crossover production category. Tell us more about this story and how much this kind of recognition means.

Immediately after the release of the album, one of the reviews was published in the Austrian daily "Der Standard". The author of the review, Christoph Irrgeher—known as a music journalist for music and other magazines and one of the members of the commission for awarding the aforementioned award in the Crossover Productions category—then told me unofficially that the album was proposed to the nomination commission. I was far from expecting something like that to happen because I am not someone whose music has a huge audience, especially not globally, nor have I ever invested in a lot of self-promotion and media visibility. That said, “Pilgrim's Dream” is an album that I almost gave up on last year due to many difficult circumstances, including a virtually non-existent budget. After finishing work on that album and so much fatigue, I least expected such news, and even less, a few weeks later, news of an official nomination for an award. The German Record Critics' Award is a significant recognition in the field of European music, and the fact that an album like this was nominated among the albums of major record labels like ECM and that it was recognised as worthy of attention, is already a reward for me.

Let's not neglect your other projects. You work on a large number of things with the same number of collaborators. What are you currently working on?

I have played with many different phenomenal musicians, but with some there is a special kind of musical understanding and compatibility, so names like Balázs Balogh, Morten Ramsbøl, or Ángela Tröndle often appear. The new album was released practically yesterday, and at the moment I'm not really thinking about the next one. In past years, I have invested a lot of time in studio work and a lot of music has been recorded and released. Some kind of plan at the moment is to shift the focus more to performing, concerts, and other types of musical activity.

Last time we touched on the subject of the album, which today as a format no longer has the importance it should have. We are glad that the majority of musicians still stand behind this way of presenting music. We are interested in what your motives are for framing what you create in this way. How important is it to you that the album works as a whole, and not just as a collection of individual songs?

It is very important to me because I consider an album to be a body of work, not a collection of selected works. Collections of selected works, or compilations, are fine, but I do not like them. There are many albums that are not officially compilations, but to me they sound like compilations because the tracks do not connect naturally to each other or are sonically, stylistically, or thematically too far apart. This often happens to those who release singles and only after some time release an album that ends up not being an album, but a collection of singles.

Today, when you start talking about the music album as a format, it sounds like you are talking about a phenomenon of a bygone era. That is what the album is, and we should not be fooled. There are still enthusiasts who insist on it and release albums, but most listeners now access music via the internet and streaming platforms. Listening to music on the internet, on a computer or mobile phone, gives listeners easy and quick access to a huge number of titles, but it also gives them the ability to skip tracks and "scroll" through albums, not to mention popping up ads (premium account owners are probably spared that); all of that breaks the listener's attention, tires their ears, and takes them away from the music itself.

Music is an abstract art that exists only in time, and an album as a format—that is, a kind of multi-movement piece of music, if we look at the tracks as chapters—works only if it is listened to as a whole, without pausing and without skipping. Listening to music albums used to be tied to Hi-Fi systems, couches, armchairs... People used to meet friends in their living rooms to listen to albums. Today, people mostly do this on their mobile phones between daily tasks. My insistence on the album as a format is simultaneously an insistence that the audience return to the Hi-Fi system and the couch, because that means a return from passive to active listening.

Recently, through your channels, you published an important and much-needed essay about music in today's digital world—that is, its consumption and distribution...

The motivation for this was a question that people often ask me — why my music is not on streaming platforms. From today's perspective, especially from the perspective of younger generations, it is a very logical question. However, the answer is not so simple, and after I found myself countless times in a situation where I had to give it in a very concise form orally, I decided to explain everything in more detail, put it on paper, and make it available to everyone.

Basically, that text points the finger at a lot of, in my opinion, bad things related to today's way of listening to music, which, as I mentioned earlier, is passive; listening to music is mostly a background event that occurs while performing some main action. It also speaks about a globally accepted new attitude, which is that music is considered available only if it exists on streaming platforms, while otherwise it is considered unavailable, as if it had never been released; about how close the meaning of the word "available" is today to the word "free"; what the degree of laziness of the average listener is, who more and more often does not search for what they want to listen to, but leaves the role of music editor to an algorithm... The text also looks at the way streaming platforms do business; how the distribution of money works, whom the money from the subscriptions really goes to, and so on, all the way to the difference between a subscription to a streaming platform and the true ownership of a copy of a music album.

Talking openly and publicly about these things is very important because there are many people and music fans who are not aware of these issues and who really think that paying a subscription for a streaming service helps, for example, the local music scene. It is also important because of those musicians who are aware of these problems but choose to turn a blind eye.

(Click to read the essay "Why Is Your Music Not on Streaming Platforms?")

An important topic regarding streaming is algorithms that do not work according to the principles of music quality, but rather according to other rules. For example: how many seconds did the listener listen to the song, was the song replayed, what are the physical characteristics of the given audio track, the atmosphere, the year of production... Do you have any experiences related to this that you could share with younger colleagues and our readers?

My association with streaming platforms was a long time ago, very short-lived, and that was more than enough to motivate me to abandon them. I only used them so that when I came across some new music, I could give it a quick listen to see what it was all about. When I liked something, I would buy a CD or borrow it from the city library.

The algorithm analyses what we listen to, what we pay attention to and then throws similar content at us, which presents itself as a kind of "cool" system for discovering new music. It doesn't have to be absolutely bad. I know for a fact that there are people who discovered my profile through their social media algorithm and I never paid for my posts to appear as ads in news feeds of other people. However, reducing the search for music only to an algorithm, giving it complete control and giving it the role of music editor is disastrous. The algorithm does not understand emotion. It does not distinguish art from kitsch. It handles, as you said, the data: what we listen to most often, what we skip most often... and based on such information, it concludes what we would like to hear next. However, I, as a curious listener, do not want to hear something that I have already heard; I am not interested in paraphrasing or retelling. If I have heard a song a lot of times and it is obvious that I liked it, that does not mean I want to hear fifteen different covers of that song by other artists. If I listened to jazz for two hours today, it does not mean that I am not interested in classical music or rock.

Success and quality have long been valued through the number of views and likes. Content with a high number of views is content that the algorithm interprets as worthy of attention, and it will rarely throw anything at you that is not popular and has not already been viewed by a large number of people. The sad thing is that most people are increasingly adopting the behavior of the algorithm—they tend to like and respond positively to what they have already heard many times, while they often react negatively to what is different and unusual. These are the consequences that occur when you surrender to the mercy of the algorithm and feed your mind with the same sound every day. Streaming platforms have perfected this form of hypnosis. The search for good music will still be best led by a human who is curious, searching with their own hands.

For debutantes and those who are still breaking into the market (sometimes with several albums), online services are an important form of promotion. Unfortunately, as you yourself noticed, they do not get any financial benefits from them. Vinyl, CD, and merch printing is becoming increasingly popular; however, these relatively small print runs can only be sold out by bands that are constantly on tour. Can you give us some comments on this struggle of authors with the market?

The concept of the music industry and the roles of publishers and musicians have completely changed. They have actually turned upside down. In the past, publishers were looking for interesting music, for interesting bands to invest in. Now there is no such thing. Publishers usually work with finished products—finished productions that are often financed by the musicians themselves—which means that the musicians pay for rehearsal space, days in the studio, mixing material, designing covers for physical releases, and printing them. Often, contracts between publishers and musicians mean that, in the end, the musician buys copies of their own album from the publisher. There are also cases where the copyright does not belong entirely to the musician, but the publisher remains the majority owner with a share of 51%, after which the musician needs years to return the investment. So, in the entire music business, everyone is protected except the musicians. The whole burden of playing music—and I mean music as an art, not entertainment and show business—falls on the backs of musicians, and playing music has really become a complete luxury that more and more often only the children of rich parents can afford. Honestly, I do not see any big fight happening against all of that. I think it needs a collective boycott because the few of us who have turned our backs on bad publisher deals and removed our music from streaming platforms are not enough.

Finally, the inevitable question related to the use of artificial intelligence. While streams are littered with millions of tracks created exclusively through text2music prompts, there are also artists who manage to use AI in a very creative way. Although the world is adapting very slowly to this situation, especially the part of it related to rules and laws, there is progress. How do you feel about today's world in this regard, and where do you think music will be in three or four years?

I obviously missed examples of creative use of that technology. However, I do not think AI has any place in art. For me, art is something very personal and human. I expected that new technologies would take over some boring tasks like washing and hanging laundry so that we humans could turn more to art and fine things. However, AI seems to be taking over composing, recording, mixing... and musicians have less and less time for music in addition to survival.

The AI ​​feeds on music created by musicians to generate "new" music and even starts claiming copyrights for its creations. A colleague of mine recently happened to be reported for copyright infringement for using 46 seconds of his own music in his own video clip, which allegedly comes from a musical "work" authored, very likely, by an AI. I cannot escape the impression that this new technology, at least when it comes to music, represents an entrance into the world of music for untalented people who have nothing to look for in it. AI may be a very powerful tool that will speed up certain processes, but it can definitely be very harmful in the hands of charlatans. AI music generator platforms such as Suno are presented and advertised as music creation tools that require no musical experience or knowledge. Let us ask ourselves who it benefits.

I do not know where music will be in a few years, but it seems to me that real music will soon only exist in places where live performances happen: in concert halls, on the street... where we can hear, see, and feel the work of hands.

(Translated from Serbo-Croatian. This interview was originally published on the Montenegrin pop-culture portal mulj.net on the 6th of September 2026 by Dragan Lučić.)