A short talk with Roberto from Sweet Trip on authenticity in music, growing up, and love letters.
Diogo: A Tiny House, In Secret Speeches, Polar Equals marks Sweet Trip's very anticipated return to full-length albums. How much has changed in your personal lives since the release of Halica, in 1998?
Roby: We've gotten older and busier with all kinds of commitments that come from being adults.
Diogo: What about the chameleonic sound produced by the band? Do you try to keep pushing the boundaries, as you did almost two decades ago, or have you found a safe haven that you're familiar with and willing to develop?
Roby: We don't try to push any boundaries, to be honest. I don't consider what we do production-wise to be that out of the ordinary, and anyone can and has made similar production decisions before, during, after, and currently. We don't sit down to discuss new music and throw statements like, "how can we make this and that crazier? How can we push the envelope?" because that would be very dishonest to ourselves and to people who may, hopefully, listen to us. One thing that I can say about our music is that it comes from personal thoughts and feelings, and these dictate how a song should sound. We make ourselves vulnerable and open to our listeners with our songs. Trying to deliberately steer a song to sound in a particular way other than what it is trying to be for the sake of "pushing the envelope" negates all the emotions and openness that we are trying to deliver, and it would make our music sound dishonest or insincere, and I feel people would catch that; like saying "I love you" and not meaning it. So, we don't know what the future of Sweet Trip will sound like, but our "safe haven" is that, even if our music stops resonating with people, I hope that at least people recognize that we have an identity that is ours, like a sonic and musical signature, and that's the only thing that I care to become more familiar, but not develop further, that should come naturally.
Diogo: What are the main differences between the debut, Halica, and this year's album?
Roby: All our albums are products of their time and our personal experiences. Our first record, Halica, came from the naivete of young musicians and friends trying to figure out who we are as a band with limited resources. It is a bright record. Velocity:Design:Comfort (2003) takes that same idea further, but instead of trying to figure out our musical identity and place in the musical world, it was more of trying to figure out how to push the limits of musical and personal expression, like, "how can we convey the sadness and sense of loss we feel in this song" type of thing. VDC is also a bright record but it is way more personal than Halica. While some songs are a bit cryptic, others do come from a place of loss, longing, and hope. You Will Never Know Why (2009) is a dark record and maybe it needed to be stripped down the way it is to convey the feelings of loss, despair, anger, bitterness, cynicism, and desperation properly. A Tiny House (2021) is bright, and it is a slower-paced record because it is a love letter. It turned out the way it did to convey overflowing feelings of love and being in love, to put passion from the heart front and center. It is a record about romance, and we think it is our lushest record because that romance dictated it to be.
Diogo: You seem to believe in the theory that any "authentic" form of art mustn't be distinguished from the artist. In this case, the "object" is a projection of the Consciesnousness of the author and not an independent Being.
Roby: In my opinion, this is not a hard rule, nor is it a measure of authenticity. A clever piece of advertisement done for the purpose of selling a product may not have a lot to do with an artist's personality, but there is still some of it in there. I personally do not bother with authenticity, uniqueness, originality, etc., because I fear that thinking too much about these things would drop me into an unproductive hole that would be hard to get out of.
Diogo: Throughout your discography, it seems to occur an everlasting battle between light and darkness. However, your latest work is described as a "love letter". Do you agree that the ability to write so honestly about the "experience of loving" derives from maturity?
Roby: I think that everyone can write about love any time they experience it, and as people mature, the writing becomes more reflective and complex, and emotions are easier to put down. I also believe that regardless of the level of maturity, your first crush and your last romance come from a place of honesty.
Diogo: Velocity : Design : Comfort is a phenomenon in online communities, acclaimed as a "digital era classic" and a milestone in alternative music. Have you got any explanation for this cult following around this record? What have you done differently and how does it tick the generation's interests?
Roby: I don't have an explanation. It amazes and humbles me that so many people like that record. I don't know if we have done anything differently, but we are not trying to. We are true to ourselves first and foremost, and then hope for the best.
Diogo: These are two questions from journalist Afonso Martins: "How long did it take to produce Velocity : Design : Comfort? What synths were used?
Roby: VDC took about a year. As for synths and gear, there are too many to list, and I hardly remember what they were. We still had some hardware things that we had used for our first record, Halica, and for live shows, and we used them here and there, but we made VDC during the time when plugins were becoming more accessible, especially free ones, so we tried and used a lot of things that we could get our hands on and make them work without crashing our Pentium desktop too often.
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