Greg Gonzalez (Cigarettes After Sex) and Los Angeles-based composer/song-writer Daniele Luppi have partnered up to present a brand new collaborative EP entitled Charm of Pleasure (out today, September 16 via Verve Records + Slowplay), marking the first time Gonzalez is releasing material under his own name.
The 5-track EP, Charm of Pleasure, is the platonic ideal of two separate artistic sensibilities melding to create something totally new. Luppi and Gonzalez first came together through a mutual friend and immediately bonded over artistic interests. “I was really impressed with his taste,” Luppi recalls. “When we met, we discovered we had a remarkable amount in common.” Inspiration struck for Charm of Pleasure after he took a wintry stroll past the legendary Venetian theater La Fenice: “I immediately heard orchestral textures and Greg’s vocals together.”
Upon returning to Los Angeles, Luppi hit the studio with Gonzalez and their creative kismet instantly yielded results well beyond expectations, as they immediately penned the heavenly closer “Another Life” on their first day together. “I was blown away by what I heard—just totally floored,” he recalls. “If that song didn’t happen the way it did, I don’t know if everything else would’ve come together.”
The duo took inspiration from film music from the late 1970s and early ’80s, around the time when composers started incorporating synths into their work to expand the possibilities of what film scoring could be. “I thought it could be dangerous to get into a specific style from the beginning, so we did it old school,” Luppi explains their process. “We wrote melodies and harmonies.”
“Everything was created in a very spontaneous way,” he continues while discussing the duo’s creative process. “All the music was written down, but Greg’s vocals were almost improvised, in a way.”
Listen to EP Charm of Pleasure in full below: