Sicilian composer, producer and instrumentalist Donato Di Trapani is best known internationally as synthesist and keyboard player for Paolo Nutini, but he is also the co‑founder and resident producer at Indigo Studios in Palermo, where he and Nutini first met. The composer is currently working on a suite of electronic tracks reinterpreting vintage recordings of Sicilian folk songs.
At the moment I can’t stop listening to
There isn’t really a record that I can’t stop listening to right now. There is, however, a record that I’ve never stopped listening to, and that is Bach’s Goldberg Variations played by Glenn Gould. The second recording. I almost know it all by heart. I studied classical piano between the ages of seven and 15, but as a teenager, I wanted to create, not just execute. However, what I retained from that experience was Bach. In terms of melody, everything I’ve learned I’ve taken in some way from Bach. I believe that the Goldberg Variations represents one of the highest points of Western culture in terms of building melodies and their variations. Glenn Gould’s interpretation was so amazing, using almost no sustain pedal, as if playing a harpsichord. It’s so clear. He made two famous recordings, one in ’55 and one in ’81. The 1955 one is incredibly fast and virtuosic; it’s so impressive in terms of technique. The 1981 one is much slower, but it’s almost summing up everything he had learned about music. He died around one year after that recording. It’s so moving. When I’m composing in the studio, Bach is always one of my biggest influences.
The artist I’d most like to collaborate with
If I could choose, I would do a soundtrack for a Werner Herzog movie. I like the way he approaches his art in this uncompromising yet still magical way. And in every movie he does, there’s such a strong kind of intuition in the ideas. For example, Nosferatu — it’s a Popol Vuh soundtrack — starts with a crazy choir of very low voices, and then it completely changes into this very peaceful guitar track. I find it very powerful. I would like to collaborate with someone who has that kind of sparkle, of real magic. In terms of musicians, there are of course tons I would like to collaborate with! One of them is undoubtedly Nicolas Jaar. I love the way he went from kind of a ‘superstar DJ’ to someone who turned his back on the system and started approaching things in a very personal way, focusing on his own cultural and musical roots, involving local communities all around the world. His work is simultaneously poetic and political.
Donato Di Trapani: I mostly get excited when I see gear that I don’t know.
The first thing I look for in a studio
I mostly get excited when I see gear that I don’t know; something I’ve never seen in my life, that I don’t know how it works. It forces me to come up with a more creative and instinctive approach to what I want to do. On the contrary, if I go to a studio where I find all the classics, like a [Sequential] Prophet, a Minimoog, a [Roland] Space Echo... I’ll be like: “OK, I know how this sounds. I know how it works.” I’ll have to be really inspired by the music, by the project, by other things. It won’t be the gear that’s inspiring me. But if I find something that I’ve never used before, and maybe that I have to struggle with a bit, that can be inspiring: a prototype of a synth, for example. A while ago I went to the Museo Del Synth Marchigiano, an amazing place in Italy where a lot of the instruments are kind of a prototype. So you essentially have to guess how it works! That’s really exciting for me.
The person I would consider my mentor
It’s a Sicilian artist who was and still is very famous in Italy: Franco Battiato. He died in 2021 and was a unique figure. He was a hybrid between a musician and a philosopher and had such a special take on music and life in general. I got the chance to have lunch with him back in 2011; I was telling him about my own experiments with my first band, and he was giving me some philosophical advice, like “Always follow your will.” It was of course very generic but at the time it had a strong impact on me. Only later did I realise how right he was! In every interview, he had this kind of detached vibe and humour, which is very Sicilian.
He also did many avant‑garde electronic experiments on his first records, which are amazing. I was listening just last week to an old album, L’Egitto Prima Delle Sabbie [Egypt Before The Sands], composed in the late ’70s: it’s just piano loops, evolving for like 20 minutes. But then, all of a sudden, he said, “OK, now I want to become famous, I want to be known to a lot of people. I’m going to make a pop record.” And he made what is, for me, the most amazing Italian pop record ever, called La Voce Del Padrone [The Master’s Voice]. It’s a short record, seven songs, but very dense, with genius songwriting and very smart synth arrangements. It’s one of my favourite records ever.
My go‑to reference track or album
The reference for what I am composing right now has definitely been a compilation called La Ola Interior: Spanish Ambient & Acid Exoticism 1983‑1990, released by a Swiss label called Bongo Joe Records. That was an incredible discovery for me. I didn’t know that in the late ’70s and early ’80s, there were so many artists experimenting with electronic music, but at the same time sounding so Spanish in the way they were sculpting things. For example, the drum sounds aren’t just ‘drum sounds’ most of the time, they are sequenced synth percussion with a very warm low end and a peculiar tone. All the synth lines, they are not the ‘classic’ synth sounds you hear from the ’80s like the Human League or Depeche Mode, or whatever. It’s a different harmonic texture.
My secret weapon in the studio is
It’s an ability, really: I think I have a very quick and instinctive way of associating sounds with what they can be used for in a piece of music. And it’s interesting, because it can make my work move much quicker. I can listen to dozens of presets, and sometimes I’ll hear one sound and immediately say, “OK, this is the sound.” This could be a sound for a riff, or a percussive part, but it’s something that I’ve always had. And I think that’s been kind of a secret weapon, because it allows me to interact with a project, or with people, in a very instinctive way, without having to think too much.
The studio session I wish I’d witnessed
OK, I’m going to go pretty ‘pop’ here, but I have to be sincere: I would have loved to witness Kid A being recorded. For me, it’s one of the biggest mysteries of contemporary music: how this incredible rock band went from one of the most amazing rock records of all time to an electronic record in which there are so many hints of how things were going to sound in the future. Vocoders, drum machines, all these amazing synthesizers... I always wonder, how did that all happen in one record!? It all changed dramatically, but in a direction that was so influential to everyone. It’s a big mystery to me. The last track, ‘Motion Picture Soundtrack’, has always been a massive reference for me. You have this very sad music, and all of a sudden there’s this explosion of, like, little twinkling stars! Listening to that at the age of 15, I was just blown away. The fact that it’s possible to mix that level of writing with that kind of arrangement still inspires me. Everything on that record is just a great idea.
The producer I’d most like to work with
I would just love to work with anyone who can really open up new territories for me. Maybe Tony Visconti, while he was recording Electric Warrior with T Rex. How did he get to that sound? And in 1971!? So clean, so definite, and at the same time, so powerful. But in terms of producers working nowadays, I love AG Cook, particularly what he was doing with the label PC Music. That way of creating unheard sounds that just didn’t exist before, and that sound so contemporary. I like the idea that pop can still be avant‑garde too and set the bar for new standards. The producer that would be closer to what I’m doing would be, of course, El Guincho. What he accomplished with his records and Rosalía and the contamination between Spanish tradition and electronic was a huge inspiration to me.
The studio experience that taught me the most
My first session with Paolo Nutini in Brussels, recording Last Night In The Bittersweet. It was such an adventure, in a high‑level environment, and it was a massive test for me as a musician. I got the message asking me to go to Brussels and once I got there we started recording straight away and didn’t end until about seven in the morning. I played so many songs, and they were all so different. There were ballads, Krautrock‑like songs, rock songs, there was experimentation, almost avant‑garde stuff... everything. So I had to give it my all, relentlessly. And it was funny, there was no comfort zone, no MIDI quantisation, it was all live. There was no real time to think much about ideas for the record, for the songs, because you had to play straight away. There was the producer Dani [Castelar] going: “OK, let’s do it!” and you had to play. I had so many synthesizers there, I decided on this weird hybrid approach with a Memorymoog, a Juno‑60, and a Philicorda, and then I had my usual gear as well, like the [Elektron] Digitone and the Prophet 08. Of course, there was a Hammond and piano and everything. But I had to be so focused on every song, to figure out which instrument would work best, to think about the structure and the chords with no charts. It was really another level for me in terms of pressure, of proving myself in an ultra‑professional environment.
The advice I’d give myself 10 years ago
Find your sound. It’s not about buying expensive gear or, I don’t know, even collaborating with cool people. It’s about your approach to sound and to music. That’s massively important to me: an amazing session pianist can be replaced by any one of hundreds of other pianists. That was a bit of the thing for me with Paolo, at the beginning. I would find myself thinking: “Why is he choosing me? Among all the many talented and amazing musicians he could choose from, and who would probably even play for free.” But as time passed and we kept collaborating, I realised that maybe he just liked my approach to sound and music, and that it really matches what he does. Once you have that, you can’t easily be replaced. The thing I love the most is when people tell me, “Ah, this really sounds like you,” because it means my sound represents me, so that people can recognise me through my work. So that’s what I would say: focus on finding your sound.