CCCXXXIII Sailing on the horizon of tranquility and ferocity

CCCXXXIII is the moniker of Borloo-based artist Shaun Ferraloro. Drawing on his eclectic taste in music ranging from atmospheric to heavy alternative, Ferraloro performs live soundscapes by playing guitar together with synthesisers and recorded tape loops to create an experimental wall of sound that can be as ferocious as it is serene. ANTHONY JACKSON caught up with Ferraloro to find out the story behind the record and what we can look forward to at the launch show this Saturday, April 27 at The Bird, supported by audio/visual art act Veils and alt-metal band Territory. 

Congratulations on the release of HAUS. How long has the album been in the making?

It took quite a few years, maybe four years, but that was on and off. There was a year where I didn’t even listen to it, and a part of that was just not having a set date to have it all finished by, but also not knowing what kind of direction I wanted it to go in. I listen to lots of different types of music, and there are a lot of different sounds that I like, so I didn’t know if I wanted it to be a Lo-Fi album or the next Mezzanine by Massive Attack, which is my ultimate goal to create that kind of magnum opus.

I kept playing around until I found the sound that I thought was great and gave me the direction and the ability to work on it with an end sound in mind.

All of the tracks contain ‘no’ and ‘thing’ in their titles. Can you tell us the motivation behind the album? Is there an underlying theme to the work?

It’s called Haus because I wrote it all in my house, Haus in German, because it was fun to nickname our house “Haus.” Every new track that I wrote, so I could find it and know what it was a part of, I would name Haus, and then the next part was me just being depressing and saying, ‘The first track is No Thing, because it’s nothing, only me; it’s a nothing track (laughs).

Then every time I would start a new one, I would follow that bleak naming style. It grew on me over time, and now I see it as something fun. I think they resonate in a progressive sense; one of the tracks is called No Sure Thing because, honestly, I was probably unsure about what I was doing at the time and just seeing what happened as I built the track to see where it would go. I guess that is the part where it became something fun instead of me just being bleak about my artistic endeavours.

How would you describe your sound? You said Massive Attack is a big influence?

Obviously, my music has ambient elements to it, but fundamentally, I am a guitarist, so I thought that was what I should write—a guitar album—but I didn’t want it to be just another guitar album. So to describe it, I wanted it to be guitar-driven but not guitar-focused. Sound-wise, I wanted to make an atmospheric soundscape with a guitar narrative.

When you go to write a song, do you sit down with the intention to create something, or does it just come organically from exploration when playing?

A bit of both. I think a lot of songwriters can relate to that, where sometimes you are just noodling around and you think, ‘That’s a killer riff. I’m definitely doing something with this,’ and other times it’s work and you know you need to write something, so you just sit down and bash away. My getting started technique is to either set a drone on the synth and start playing along to that in some capacity, or I’ll set a drum track up in Logic or Garage Band, and that will give me a rhythm and a sense of feel, so I’ll play along to that so that it gives me guidelines, and then it goes on from there.

You are studying composition at WAAPA (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts); how do you think that has been beneficial to your own work?

I am loving the course, and it is very inspiring moving forward and writing new music, but it was a bit of a hindrance to finishing this album. I hoped to finish the album before I started the course so I wouldn’t learn all new things and then realise my album sucked and I had to go back and redo it with all the new stuff I had learned.

But it did overlap, and I kept in mind that I would just put a pin in it, and this album is the best I could do at the time that I wrote it. Fortunately, I learned a whole bunch of new production techniques, which gave me the technical ability and confidence to mix it myself and be happy with the final product.

Were you able to use some of your songs in your composition assignments?

I haven’t used any of the album tracks, but tracks that I have written for assignments since I have been here have moved into my live material and will probably become things that I use later on.

You are a multi-disciplinary artist with an extensive history in photography. Do you find similarities between music creation and the creation of art through photography?

It is real; there is a connection there. The album cover is something that I shot on 35mm film when I was on holiday in Italy with my family. The album cover is the birth home (Haus) of my Sicilian grandad, on the side of a mountain. It’s all overgrown now; we went and had a look at it, and there is like a burnt-out tyre in it and some trash and shit. But it was pretty cool to go and see that.

I didn’t take the shot knowing that was how I was going to use it; it was just something I saw that I thought was worth taking a shot of. It is thought-provoking to see where your lineage comes from in a very literal sense. Side note: I thought it was funny how the grandparents would say, “I used to have to walk up and down a mountain to get to school.” And then we got there, and, holy shit! This is actually a mountain! You literally did that! That’s nuts!

And I look at my old photography to use in the visuals for the live show as well. This is the idea that I follow between music and photography: I like images that do have a narrative; you look at them, and they take you on a journey.

What’s the story that is being told? What can you feel from that? I took it or I wrote it, so I know what it is about and I know what I feel, but it should still present something that anyone can look at or anyone could listen to, and they can find their own journey or meaning inside that artwork.

The album launch is this Saturday at The Bird. What can we expect at the show?

I’ve got two amazing support acts that I’m really happy have agreed to play on the bill; one is Veils and the other is Territory. Both from two different sides of music, Veils is a collective, and they have a mix of drum machines, synthesisers, modular synth, live visuals, noisy guitars and screaming and all other sorts of electro-acoustic sounds and experimentation, definitely coming from the noise-machine side of the music world.

Territory are a cross-punk d-beat band, heavy as hell, kickass, straight-out rock band. I like that dynamic because it shows the venn diagram of music that I enjoy. I like going to gigs that show that scope as well. Despite my album being a soundscape, I still endeavour to have a sense of ferocity when I play it and when I present it, so I want those bands to show those two sides, and mine is in the middle.