A New York music and culture fanzine. LOVE INJECTION ISSUE 40 — AUGUST 2018 RON TRENT UNDERGROUND SYSTEM ABBY ECHIVERRI GE-OLOGY Free in NYC, USA $6, UK £7, EUR €7, JAP ¥1080 © Most Excellent Unlimited LOVE INJECTION UNDERGROUND SYSTEM Domenica Fossati: He was an intern at a company My dad’s a Bay Area kid. Berkley in the sixties… How many people were in the band total by called Boosey & Hawkes and I was the assistant went to Monterey Pop Festival, grew up with the time you got to the first EP? How did the to the promoter, so we met through part-time the Grateful Dead sort of guy. He was definitely duties get divided? office work. I play sometimes with the guys from responsible for… nudging me in a really cool Antibalas and I play in the lead singer’s side- direction. He showed me one of my favorite live D.F.: With the first EP, it was, like, twelve. It was project. I was playing a gig at Knitting Factory rock albums ever, the Who’s Live at Leeds. That a big group. and he sent me an email the next day like, “Hey, one definitely changed my life. Mahavishnu I’m the intern at Boosey & Hawkes, but I saw you Orchestra when I was getting into jazz. All the P.M.: The first one was straight-up, classic playing with [Duke] Amayo and I love Afrobeat. Miles [Davis] stuff. I’m super lucky in that way. Afrobeat instrumentation, so it would’ve been a I have this band—would you be interested in I haven’t met a whole lot of people from families lot. Eleven? maybe playing with us and sitting in on a couple who only did music or art stuff. songs? Here’s my Myspace.” I was like, I don’t D.F.: It was basically everyone we were playing remember this guy, but I’ll check it out. I told How quickly did it take you to decide to record with. It was people we still know. At the time, the What are you? him, “Yeah, I’m down to play a song here and an EP? people moving the recording process along… it there on flute.” I went to the rehearsal and he was was mostly you and Dave [Cutler]. like, “Do you wanna play a little keyboard, too?” P.M.: It happened pretty quickly—[after] about a I said sure, so I’m playing shekere and keyboards year. For the first few months, we were basically P.M.: Although that’s been pretty constant. On and fluting it up, and I’m looking around, going, just covering Fela stuff and the whole group was that end of it, I’ve mostly been the guy who’s Man, some of these people don’t really feel like learning how to play it well together. It’s totally like, “Let’s produce a record,” who’s nudging that the Afrobeat thing as much, so I told him I all ensemble music—every single person has along. But me and Domenica, we’re definitely thought I could help bring other characters into to play one thing really well. That’s so much the songwriters, and then the band has its own the group if he was interested. Then, even though work. After the first few months, we started presence since we’ve known each other for a I wasn’t helping lead the group with him, I was sketching originals totally in that straight-up, while. A little bit of the arrangement stuff we getting involved in it, and, next thing I know, he classic Afrobeat mode. I think we were lucky work on collectively, but, yeah, it’s definitely me asks me to sing a Fela song, and I’m like, “I don’t that we were both learning it as we went, and and Domenica on that end of it. sing.” And he goes, “Just sing one song” and I was Domenica was learning how to be a frontperson. like “Alright, I’ll sing one song” and I liked it a Aesthetically, it wasn’t experimental at all, but it So you’re more on guitar and rhythm and How did you meet? lot, and so I started singing more Fela songs. Next was experimental to us. There was an urgency you’re more on flute and vocals? thing I know, I’m fronting the band, which was you felt because of that. Peter Matson: I was in music school at the New totally not what I expected. It was really quick D.F.: Kind of. Most of the time, he’ll bring a School, and I met a couple of the guys in that band and completely not what I expected to do. Fronting a band is incredibly difficult! Who track that he’s been messing around with or he’ll Antibalas, which is kind of the original Brooklyn did you look to? have a guitar thing, and then I’ll come up with [act] to play Afrobeat. I was playing a lot of jazz Where did you come from musically? I saw a lot of melodic ideas and lyrics. But sometimes music at the time, maybe four or five years, and your mom is a singer? D.F.: I was paying attention a lot to Amayo I’ll present it to him as like, “I really feel like a I was definitely open to escaping a little bit and because he has a presence and the gift of gab. I rhythm like this.” That’s how “Three’s a Charm” looking for some other outlets for it. I met them D.F.: Yeah, my mom’s a singer—a jazz singer. She started paying attention to a lot of friends who started—I was in pursuit of something in triplet and started playing a lot of Fela [Kuti]’s music was a pop singer in Venezuela, too. I grew up are just very good at talking to an audience and form. with them and under their guidance, and it just dancing, actually, before I started playing flute. I who know how to… not control, but how to direct sort of went from there. I got really obsessed was gonna go to college for dance, and then I did an ensemble while presenting something to P.M.: And there’s a little bit of electronic music with Fela for maybe half a year; it was all I was this music program for one summer at Berklee people. Me, at that time, it was Amayo. After that, processes. I learned how to make beats on a playing and practicing on guitar every day. Every and I fell in love with the flute, so I started playing I would look at YouTube videos of my favorite sampler while I was in college. I stopped for a few day, playing for three hours along to, like, “Upside the flute. I went to school to actually do chamber artists. I would look at Prince a lot—I started years because I got really serious about guitar, but Down.” Then, I realized, in order to play this kind music. I went to undergrad for classical music doing that a lot a couple years ago. At that time, it circled back when I got Ableton, back in 2010, of music, you need to gather, like, twelve people and graduate school at NYU for contemporary because it was mainly Peter who was in charge of 2011. All our tracks do start in that mode, on the and take it all the way. At the time, there were abstract, weird flute shit. I was doing all that, but the thing, I was mainly trying to figure out how grid in Ableton, as a beat in Ableton, and then we quite a few Afrobeat bands with rotating casts then when I met Amayo from Antibalas, who I [our] balance was working out. I was trying to layer out from there. of characters, but there wasn’t really a group was already a fan of, it totally opened me up to understand what my role was. available for me to just jump in with. But I was do other stuff outside of the contemporary music It seems like a good process. also around musicians all the time, so it was like, world. I still play with some groups every once in So it was two of you, then people came in I should just start doing it. We had one pick- a while, but I just got obsessed with Afrobeat. I and out and you were trying to find the right D.F.: I don’t think there’s ever been a time when up gig out of town and then, after that, me and felt more comfortable with playing grooves and combination. How did that work out? we just sit and improvise. Maybe a couple times, Domenica [Fossati] met. We were working at a dancing—it was the best way to blend my two but… most of the time, there’s at least, like, some music publishing company. passions together. That’s kind of where I came P.M.: Domenica was a big part of that, too. It beat. from, and when I started playing with [Peter], was just our whole extended network of people. I started focusing more on this world. My idea A never-ending series of phone calls, meeting P.M.: It’d be fun to do that, for sure at some point. of coming to New York to play “contemporary” people randomly [through] their peripheral But mostly, there’s a contextual idea or theme.