Hometown: Naples, Italy

Musical genre: darkwave – shoegaze - dream pop

 

Line-up: Nino Candia (bass guitar), Francesco Candia (guitar), Antonio Minucci (synth), Paolo D’Addio (vocals & lyrics), Davide Fusco (drums).

 

1. The beginning (1993-1995)

The band is started in Autumn 1993 by cousins Nino and Francesco Candia, with the aim to make indie music; Antonio Minucci and Paolo D’Addio soon join the project, and after a few months the line-up is permanently completed with Davide Fusco. In these early years the group features an additional guitarist called Davide Esposito; a series of gigs at the Riot, a famous venue in the heart of the historical center of Naples, makes the band well-known in the city.

 

In winter 1994 they record a 5-track demotape at the Orpheus music-lab in Naples: Cream, Dance in the rainfall, Garden of easy love, Night chants, At the twilight play. The sound of these songs is a mix of dream pop and post punk from the UK.

 

The band is quite active on stage and is invited by the label Energeia to take part in the second volume of their sampler Intimations of Immortality with a previously unreleased track called Frost upon the trees: the positive feedback from the fanzines leads Energeia to sign the band for the production of 2 albums.

 

2. The first album (1996-1997)

Nino Candia is forced to a temporary absence and is replaced by Hermes Leonardi, bass guitar player from another local band called Carmilla. The group moves to the TVA studios in Cilento, in the southern countryside, where they record their first CD, “Trees”, whose sound features ethereal atmospheres typical of the style referred to as darkwave. The album is released by Energeia and distributed worldwide by Audioglobe; the international reviewers support this debut and the label Radio Luxor invites them to take part in the tribute CD Anyone can be a Virgin Prunes. A national tour follows, at the end of which Davide Esposito quits and Nino Candia joins the band again.

 

3. The second album (1998-1999)

In the spring of 1999 the band records their second CD, “Harmonizer”, at the MDA studios in Naples. The album, which features a more shoegaze sound, is released by Energeia and distributed worldwide by Audioglobe again. One of the best indie music magazines in America, namely Losing Today, includes the title-track in their compilation A painted dream vol.2, making the band known also in the US and Canada. 

The site www.dreampop.it have included  "Trees" and "Harmonizer" amongst the seminal albums in their "History of Dreampop".

 

4. The third album (2000-2005)

A long period of recording sessions at the Seahorse studios in Naples results in the production of their third CD, “Ash”, which features guest musicians as guitarist Paolo Messere (Blessed Child Opera) and violin player Edo Notarloberti and pianist Luigi Rubino (Ashram). The album is released by Ark Records in a box entitled “Walking Trees”, which includes also the first two albums to form a sort of trilogy. The band performs one last show on the stage of Galleria Toledo in Naples in May 2005, and then decides to take a long time of leave.

 

5. Side projects (2006-2016)

Davide Fusco, Nino and Francesco Candia start a project called Candya, producing a CD, “Altalena di cera”, released by Ark Records in 2012: the album features guest singers as Paolo D’Addio (Trees), Sergio Panarella (Ashram) and Corrado Videtta (Argine). They are later joined by singer Annalisa Lynch and guitarist Roberto Esposito, and under the name Silent Ways they record a CD released in 2016 by Swiss label Dark Nights.

 Francesco Candia and Paolo D’Addio, under the name Population 2, produce a CD called “Home Sessions” released by Vipchoyo Sound Factory in 2016; the project features also in the label’s compilation with the single “Motherless Child”. Francesco and Nino Candia, together with singer Annalisa Lynch, start another project called Lifeform.

 

6. The reunion (2017-2018)

The band’s reunion happens in November 2017 with a live performance at the Cellar Theory in Naples. Camilla Ivy Forest opens the band’s fanclub Love Like Page, and two videos come out, “In your hive” by Giuseppe Intorre and “Harmonizer” by Oceanographer Radio.

 

7. The fourth album (2019)

New studio sessions in Cilento lead to the release of their fourth album, Epilogue, produced by Vipchoyo Sound Factory in March following an intense live showcase at Kestè Abbash in Naples. Giuseppe Intorre opens the band’s official website and Annalisa Lynch films the new video “Girls love poets”, followed by two more promo videos for "Silent Calling" and "A Good Reason To Go", a lyric video for "Shut Not Your Door" and a live visualizer for "Out Of The Blue". Following a digital expanded reissue of their first demo tape, In 2020 the band release their first official live album/video entitled Serenades For Passing Strangers, recorded few days before the Coronavirus lockdown at Defrag club in Rome, and start working at their fifth studio album.

 

8. Featurings

Davide Fusco has played in many bands, both in Italy (Argine, Blessed Child Opera, Stella Diana) and in the UK (TV1, 10 Second Star, Superpop, Idiotboy, Sleepless), while Francesco Candia has played in Blessed Child Opera. Paolo D’Addio has written several lyrics for Ashram, being their guest singer in gigs in Italy and in two tours in Portugal; he has also been a guest-singer in Moopo’s CD “The only word of my prayer” (Seahorse 2002) and on a couple of projects driven by band's long time friend Giuseppe Intorre in 2020.