Eduardo Urbano records and produces his music alone, in his own house. This week he tells us how he opted for a more minimalist format, different from the current music industry standard, for his release Fracasso for Lovers.
The melancholic melody of Brazilian Eduardo Urbano led us to get in touch with the artist and explore the process behind the creation.
Could you give us a quick introduction of yourself and your musical project?
I am always looking to innovate in my compositions, lately my inspirations are focused on classic rock, with some elements of contemporary music. The characteristic that I have kept in my compositions is the idea of minimalist music, with the instruments well separated and highlighted in each melody.
I compose, record, and produce everything in my house, with a home studio I set up. It was the best option for me because I feel free to evolve my ideas, I can do everything in my own time, and with this, I have time to think, listen to my songs, add, remove elements, or even recompose melodies.
Do you have anything to tell about "Fracasso for Lovers"?
Fracasso for Lovers is the single of my first two songs released to the market. They were composed, recorded, and produced only by me. Since 2019 I have had this project, but it was in 2020 (a very melancholic year for me), that I was able to stop, think about my compositions, and put them into practice. The idea of the title song is to show an acceptance to love stories that went wrong and can still go wrong, and even though the song has a melancholic tone, it tries to be more conformist than just romantic, besides having an existentialist character.
It has a very simple recording with few instruments (guitar, acoustic guitar, harmonica, and vocals) and was one of my favorite songs to compose and the first song I composed in my native language (Brazilian Portuguese), so I felt more freedom when creating the lyrics. I put some parts in French that complement the lyrics because I thought it would be cool with the phonetics of the French language in the song and also with the theme of love.
In the song Hopeful Times Again, I talk about loss, but I tried to deal more with longing than the feeling of loss, and I believe that this feeling of longing can be treated as a "universal love", which extrapolates romantic love, and serves for all kinds of losses that we can have in our relationships with living beings that make up our journey, When I composed this song I was very inspired by the Beatles, especially in the songs from the Rubber Soul album, with a simple melody that changes and evolves within the work without losing the characteristics of the beginning. I also chose to leave it short without repetitions, to cause a greater impact on the first hearing.
Could you tell us a bit about your experience with the digital music industry and your start as an independent musician?
The digital music industry was fundamental for me to believe in what I was doing and be able to make this dream come true. Seeing independent artists who also started from nothing with no producers, and were able to release their music in a giant digital music market, made me want to continue, and gave me the self-esteem I needed to take my last steps with the release of my first single.
The doubt of how to make my music accessible to more people arose from the beginning when I made the decision that I wanted to promote my art, and with that came the insecurity of wondering how I would find someone to manage and finance these ideas of mine, but then with the research, came the information about this market of digital releases that facilitate the whole process and leave me in control of my work and career, It was this independence that I needed and with it came the idea of recording everything at home too, which made it much easier in a year with a pandemic (it happened in 2020).
What do you have planned for 2021?
If everything goes as planned, by the end of 2021 I intend to release an album, with a good amount of songs and with coherence between one song and another. I also intend to improve my recordings, new equipment, new techniques, and am also thinking of adding new instruments, which I am trying to learn through partnerships with other musicians. I have two songs ready that will be part of the new album but I will probably release them as a single before the album.