Name: Luca Formentini
Occupation: Guitarist, sound artist, composer, improviser
Nationality: Italian
Current release: Luca Formentini's new album I am Ghosts is available October 10th, 2025 via Curious.

If you enjoyed this interview with Luca Formentini and would like to stay up to date on new releases and tour dates, visit his official homepage. He is also on Facebook, Instagram, and bandcamp.



When I first read the title to your new series of compositions, I instantly had to think of that famous quote from the Christopher Nolan movie Interstellar: “We're just here to be memories of our kids. Once you're a parent, you're the ghost of your children's future.”

Thank you for reminding me of that beautiful movie. As a father to a girl, it deeply resonated with me.

While there’s no intentional connection to that sentence, I agree it reflects a similar sense of responsibility and dynamic. We may be more or less aware of the impact our actions have on others, but there’s no doubt that many of those actions will leave lasting impressions, regardless of our original intentions.

My concept of 'ghosts' is broader; it extends beyond the mere reverberation of someone’s memory, it takes place in what is not intentionally expressed: a secret fear, any resistance we try to control, our unspoken desires, our temptations.

Anything which is held, confined and protected in the warm depths of our private inner space.

You recorded with Steve Jansen and of course, Japan had an album called Exorcising Ghosts. Recently,one of  Depeche Mode's singles was called “Ghosts Again.” What do you think is this proximity between art and ghosts?

I think art and ghosts - as I think about them - are very much connected:
 Creativity is a form of expression that doesn’t necessarily have communication as a purpose; it can often be classified as dysfunctional.


Creating artworks can become a safe solution to build a connection with “internal” dynamics that struggle to take shape in “real” life, offering a relief to emotional pressure, discharging it with no apparent risk or damage.

When creating art, we often connect with the unexpected. This evokes judgment, which in turn reveals our resistances—one of the many ways our inner ghosts become visible.

Two quotes from the press release raised my attention. The first is: “We’re made of thoughts.” What does this say about the relation between the body and the mind?

Life unfolds across many layers, and thought is just one of them. It’s likely the layer we are most aware of, perhaps because it feels like an area where we can exert some degree of control. This might be because thought is the dimension where we spend the majority of our time—it’s the one we feel most familiar and confident with.

At the same time, it is where our perceptions seem to take shape. This is likely because thought appears to be almost entirely expressible through the most familiar communication tool we possess: language.

When thoughts connect with language, they gain the potential to expand into a celestial dimension through poetry.

What are some of the thoughts that will go into your music and how do these thoughts present themselves?

This music is intentionally not finite, it reflects the idea of boundlessness. It’s as if I’m taking your hand, guiding you to the ground to observe a small detail—then leaving you there, only to call you somewhere else, over and over again.

For this reason, some notes fall into unexpected places. They could have been removed, substituted, or edited, but they’ve been intentionally left where they are. They exist as openings to new perspectives, inviting you to engage with them, make yourself questions, and explore them just as they are.

Thoughts, imagination and creativity are closely related. Do you think that there are limits to the imagination? What is your take on the power of art to spark our imagination and thus change the world?

Someone said imagination is dependent on language, which is strictly connected to culture and experience.

I think we should imagine different areas of imagination: one is where it shapes an alternative reality or expansion of it, another one is located at the emotional layer, where feelings don’t necessarily need to be expressed to become true.

Through my music, I want to offer a safe environment to engage listeners and deepen their awareness of the essence of being human. I hope to inspire others to connect with their vulnerabilities and find strength and confidence in them. In other words, to make peace with their inner ghosts and allow them to become allies.

The second quote I was intrigued by is the following: “We’re made of ghosts, collected and inherited, generously hosted without intention.” The idea that we're made of thoughts is quite relatable. But why did you choose the word “ghost” for this second quote?  

Ghost is everything which is alive and actively playing in our emotional constitution; it can be the memory of a person, of an emotion or of an experience, being a longing, the weight of a need, a resistance for a frightening attraction.


Anything playing at an intimate level, effectively driving and impacting our decisions, but at a layer that is close to being unaware.
As humans we’re not always able to choose what to allow to get into us.

Anything can take a lot of space without us actively deciding to let it.