Name: Aañi
Members: Zigola, Dario
Nationality: Italian (Dario), Dutch, Italy-based (Zigola) 
Recommendations:
Zigola: I could recommend some books on plant intelligence and plant music:
Brilliant green - Stefano Mancuso
About Music of the plants
Children’s book about being friends with plants (currently available in Italian, next month released in English)
If you’re interested in a plantmusic device.

If you enjoyed this Aañi interview and would like to stay up to date with the duo and their music, visit their official homepage. They are also on Soundcloud and Zigola has a profile on qobuz.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

Zigola: Your questions reminds me of how I started my journey of listening to music as a child. I would wait until my siblings and parents had gone up to bed and I put on music, the records that I discovered in my parents collection, I’d switch off the lights and listen to it in the dark lying on the couch.

My first cassettes where soul music collections though, Motown, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson and I’d listen to those in any occasion, eyes open, dancing, moving, singing.

Dario: Music moves me, music changes the energy always and in any case, for better or for worse but things are never as they were before. Mostly I listen with open eyes, sometimes closed, but the important thing is where my attention is, my focus remains purely auditory even with my eyes open.
 
How do listening with headphones and listening through a stereo system change your experience of sound and music?

Dario. The main difference is that I feel free to move my body without headphones. That’s a significant difference; however, with headphones I can concentrate more on some details or certain frequencies.

Zigola: I like listening to music on a stereo, filling my house with sound, feeling the vibrations everywhere.

I’m currently training myself to work with in ear monitors, so only hearing all music we create live through my ears. I haven’t quite entered yet in the full music experience as I know it, when the music comes out of the speakers.
 
Tell me about some of the albums or artists that you love specifically for their sound, please.

Zigola: I love the song “Endless Lawns” by Kurt Elling.

It starts with an intimate acoustic sound of creating rhythm with feet on the ground, fingers snapping, guttural sounds and voice that create a beat ... and then the piano comes in.



A very intimate recording of musicality starting with the human body ... and then the instruments come in one at the time. I love that intimate athmosphere.
 
Do you experience strong emotional responses towards certain sounds? If so, what kind of sounds are these and do you have an explanation about the reasons for these responses?

Dario: There are certainly sounds that move emotions in me.

I feel very attracted to Indian instruments, I could spend hours meditating accompanied by a tampura sound, even Gongs, Tuvan singing and many shamanic instruments have the power not only to move me emotionally but also to shift my state of consciousness and I find enormous value in this.

I don't feel like looking for a rational explanation for this. I actually find that many times the rational mind, in its desire to understand, can belittle the simple act of being and enjoying the magic of what is happening.
 
There can be sounds which feel highly irritating to us and then there are others we could gladly listen to for hours. Do you have examples for either one or both of these?

Zigola: Generally I’m very sensitive to sound and music. I love silence. I love the sound of birds and other nature sounds. And then I love choosing consciously what music I put on, based on what I feel at that moment or what feeling I’d like to step into.

I cannot stand staying in situations where the music feels disharmonic or incompatible with what I am at that moment.
 
Are there everyday places, spaces, or devices which intrigue you by the way they sound? Which are these?

Zigola: I’m intrigued by hearing the sound of the city that you hear when standing on tall city buildings, like a church or tower.

The city noise - from a distance - inspires me as if I’m a silent observer, creating in my mind how I could transform these soundscapes into music, give it a sense of beauty.  
 
What are among your favourite spaces to record and play your music?

Zigola: I recorded a beautiful jazz album last year in a wonderful studio near Turin. We recorded with a quintet, simultaneously. It was amazing to hear through my headphones how this live played music sounded so perfectly clear and beautiful. I loved that. To be in an environment where sound has the highest priority.

Another place I like to record music is an underground temple, dug in the mountains in the community where I live: Damanhur, in Piedmont, Northern Italy. The temples are constructed with devotion for beauty, for expressing human potential and its spiritual soul path. Through this human intention and attention it has become a sacred space.



There are beautiful acoustics, but apart from that, the atmosphere co-creates the music. I prefer recording a cappella, polyphonic voices there, with a quintet of singers I am part of, Magjical.

Also I like recording music in the forest, for its energy that becomes part of the product and the sounds of nature that enter in the recordings.   
 


Do music and sound feel “material” to you? Does working with sound feel like you're sculpting or shaping something?

Dario: Oh yes, my main job is as a sound technician for live music or theater shows. I like the analogy with soundmixing as drowing a soundscape; or cooking. Adding a particular colour or some spice to the food seems to me like adding a particular reverb to a sound or working with EQ.

Zigola: For the project I’m currently working on with Dario, I draw my inspiration directly from nature. I visit places in the forest or near a lake and listen to its music. I open myself for nature's symphonies and record on my phone all the voices and rhythms I hear in my head. I work it into a song later at home.

When me and Dario practice the songs, using loop software, and several instruments, at a certain point it happens that I find myself again in the midsts of the forest where I first heard the sound.

I wouldn’t say that I’m sculpting, I’d rather say I am making an audible version of what I hear that already exists. And it’s ethereal, not material as clay. Although always present.
 
How important is sound for our overall well-being and in how far do you feel the "acoustic health" of a society or environment is reflective of its overall health?

Dario: I imagine a city where people's well-being is truly a priority, a necessity, a place where simply by entering suitable venues or strolling the streets, you are enveloped by beneficial frequencies that work on different aspects of us, and you only have to choose what to work on through those frequencies. A place where noises that are harmful to our well-being are avoided by everyone common choice.

I believe this would be truly evolutionary for the future of our race.
 
Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds?

Zigola: My most emotional moments are when I hear the symphonies of hidden realms. The symphonies of plants and nature spirits. I perceive their frequencies as sound and it fills my heart with deep gratitude and love when I hear their worlds.

Dario: I'm very fascinated by the song of the marine world. The song of whales is something very exciting for me to listen to, then I remember the first time I heard howler monkeys in the jungle, the sound of a stone thrown onto a frozen lake, a drop of water falling into a cave, a thunder in the distance … there is so much magic and poetry in all this!
 
Many animals communicate through sound. Based either on experience or intuition, do you feel as though interspecies communication is possible and important? Is there a creative element to it, would you say?  

Zigola: I am completely convinced interspecies contact is possible. Both with animals as with plants and all invisible dimensions.

I work with a technology that transforms bio signals of plants in musical notes. My experience is that plants’ music responds to musical dynamics created by humans. I experience it as a creative interaction.

Animals also respond to our voice of course and the intention and emotion we emit through our voice. I have no personal experience with creative processes in sound with animals though.  

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?  

Dario: I truly believe in the value of silence, especially after a significant sound vibration session!

During the sound baths I give, after a gong session, I always maintain a few minutes of silence. It's a sacred silence, charged with messages, and necessary to allow the powerful vibrations of the gongs to settle.

More than pure sound or pure silence, I truly believe in the alternation between these two phases, allowing us to appreciate their value even more!