Whispering dirty little nothings over a patchwork of ragged funk and hypnotic beats, Caspa Codina might just be the most exciting proposition you’ll receive this year. A former producer – he’s remixed artists including Soft Cell and Christina Aguilera – turned musical Pied Piper, Caspa Codina is the mind bafflingly brilliant creation of one Gabriel Olagevich. AU spoke to Gabriel as he prepared to loose Caspa on an unsuspecting public.
It’s still relatively early in the life of Caspa Codina and you remain something of an unknown quantity. For newcomers, how would you describe the music you make?
It’s tricky. Contemporary pop music with a soul and electro twist. There’s even some hip-hop in there, but not in an American way, more a UK interpretation of hip-hop and R ‘n’ B, but I’m talking R ‘n’ B in a very broad sense, you know the Stones were considered R ‘n’ B back in the Sixties, whereas nowadays everyone just thinks of it as very silky, warbling vocals and overproduced. So Caspa Codina is very much a UK take on these styles, a bit scaled up at the sides and with moments of waywardness. In short, twisted pop music! But that’s just today’s thoughts on it.
When did you take your first steps into the world of music making?
Even when I was at primary school I was interested in music. It was almost the fashion, the thing to do back then. We would go around the playground writing songs and that just became part of my life. There was this one guy who was a good friend and who was into Nik Kershaw and Duran Duran, I remember we wrote this song and played it in assembly. Eventually my friends and me, we started a proper band and began putting on gigs. I’ve always had that band mentality, the idea of forming a band and the fantasy of putting out records etc. I remember when we were sixteen we did meet some labels, but we were seen as too young. I just carried on and then later formed Spektrum and then initiated the Caspa project.
Aside from Nik Kershaw, who were the bands and musicians who really spoke to you during those formative years?
Definitely Bowie, he just had this charisma that he brought to his performance, each album was this self-contained world. The friend I mentioned earlier, he had this older brother who had all the Bowie albums. I would tape them and listen to them time and again. Each album you’d be taken into this story and Bowie was such an eclectic musician, he moved through all these different periods and yet it was always essentially him and always good quality music. I’m not a big rock fan, but then Bowie was never straightforward rock, everything had this twist to it, be it the rock, electronic or soul type songs.
Would you say that the eclecticism of Bowie’s work is something you seek to emulate?
Yes, that kind of eclecticism is something I try and bring to the Caspa project, but whereas Bowie would change it each album I’ve almost tried to have those different styles contained within the one album.
You alluded to Bowie’s ability to inhabit these different characters, the Ziggy persona, The Thin White Duke, the Berlin era, plastic soul etc. Is that role playing aspect something you’ve brought to Caspa Codina, almost that you submerge yourself within this musical alter ego?
I spend most of the day working in the studio so then, when I’m performing or recording as Caspa Codina, I almost have to adopt a different mindset. Also, in physical terms, it’s like you use a certain part of your brain to work the synthesisers, it’s more mathematical, so when I’m singing and performing as Caspa it’s much more loose, you can let go that bit more.
Part of the Caspa persona is this kind of twisted Casanova, there are times when he comes across as a bit of a sleazy rider.
There’s a certain degree of sleaze alright, it’s about creating a certain vibe. I wanted to have a little bit of that tongue-in-cheek vibe that you get from American R ‘n’ B and hip hop acts. However, some of the R ‘n’ B acts just go too far into misogyny. It’s amazing some of the stuff they get away with and people don’t even bat an eyelid.
There’s also an unashamedly funk element to the music of Caspa Codina.
Stuff like Parliament and performers like Bootsy Collins are definite influences. There’s just so much character in their work. It’s so creative, great songs and good musical material but combined with something unusual, this sense of personality and that’s what sets it off and gets me going.
