Review Fix Exclusive: Orissa’s David Dodini Talks Origin, Future

Review Fix chats with Orissa’s David Dodini, who discusses how the band got together, their creative process and goals for the future and their new single, “Tara.”

Review Fix: How’d you get involved in music?

David Dodini: I was that kid who always found himself picked as the lead of the school musical/play in elementary school though he didn’t really want it. Rather than diligently practice my part after school and weekends, I would do things like sneak in and play the guitar my Dad kept in his office. Once the teachers rightly decided not to tolerate my rebellious ways at age 11, I picked up the guitar in earnest.

I was in bands since junior high. Shortly after I discovered Julian Bream records and took to the classical guitar and to the world of music made by the classical masters. That led me to go to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and then to live in Italy for post graduate studies and to perform concerts. Next, I decided to focus on writing my own music, and to merge the music of my youth and formal training with the music of my time, and to explore ideas and emotions with music and poetry. That lead me to the fusion of those varied languages and techniques with progressive rock and metal. In progressive rock and metal there is the freedom to experiment like that. Most importantly, this style allows me to explore varied and intense emotional states with large-scale, dramatic musical forms.

Hopefully my involvement with music never takes form as an elementary school choir or drama teacher. While I think that would be fun and very rewarding, the karmic payback for my rebellious and undisciplined ways in those early years in my musical life would be severe.

Review Fix: Who influences your sound the most?

Dodini: My main teacher and maestro, Dusan Bogdanovic.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Dodini: This is the creative process for making an Orissa album.

Since it involves both a musical and a lyrical/poetic story, it all starts with some catalyst that inspires a strong emotion – often a visual image, a direct experience or human interaction, or an interesting idea or presentation of an idea. From there I have the two most important things I need, emotional catalysts, and imagery and ideas. I am constantly cataloging these and over time patterns emerge that make each piece fit into an overarching story or series of ideas and questions that have some thematic unity that I want to explore and expound upon.

At the same time I am cataloging musical ideas. I’ve built up enough material over time that if I get a visceral feeling from my catalog of writing and poetry I start hearing or searching for the music that helps paint that part of the story’s picture. Or, I may instantly know this theme and any poetry flowing from it go with some existing musical idea I’ve catalogued.  Or, I may be experimenting with musical material and some magic happens that sparks a story idea or that maps emotionally and viscerally onto a lyrically thematic idea I’ve been thinking about and developing.

At some point I get a clear idea of all of the underlying major thematic points or story points and those are the songs that fit into the story or topic that is the album. Songs are more like chapters or acts and the album more like a book in that sense. The rest is taking those musical and poetic emotional catalysts and writing a cohesive musical and poetic story to the best of my ability. The most important thing is keeping true to the initial fires of inspiration and leaving room for new fires to start and burn as I finish writing and recording. It is an interesting and rewarding dance of emotional and cerebral processes.

I imagine this process is similar to how a writer writes a novel or how a screenwriter writes a film or modern television series. With music it is nice because I have the imagery of a writer and the soundtrack of a filmmaker at my disposal. In this way the whole experience, the story, poetry and music are all developed from the same source over time. I think it creates an added intensity and fire that burns from that unified core.

On other projects I work very differently. But, that is how I work on Orissa material.

Review Fix: What makes your new EP/Album/Single special?

Dodini: The music is at once of its time and yet timeless. It is rich in layers of story and meaning. Because of the nature of my inspiration and process it also creates a tight emotional bond between the musical and poetic themes and story. This album is also interesting and/or unusual in a metal sense because it is progressive metal album that on one level is a breakup album. It is concerned with one’s relationship to oneself, since our relationships with others are are much about how we relate with ourselves as how we relate with them.

This album is a sweeping epic that is lush, dramatic, comprehensive and cathartic. It is as much of a story for the listener to write for themselves as it is for them to absorb and contemplate. You can lose yourself to the music and give in to its emotional torrent. Or if you like you can contemplate the words and lose yourself in ideas or just enjoy their beauty and imagery. It has something for everybody and everything for somebody.

A huge part of my process is avoiding cliches – musically and poetically, so any time you do that you are tapping into whatever is special about yourself – or at least giving that unique something a chance to surface.

I don’t know. I might be failing at this question. Answering it is a bit awkward.

Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who’s never heard you before?

Dodini: Lush. Epic. Deep. Multi-layered. Multi-dimensional. Cathartic. Powerful. On the other hand, I would say I would rather people listen and experience it for themselves. Let the music describe itself to you and you describe yourself to the music as you build a relationship with it.

I think this description exercise is counter to the whole point of making music, especially when it is widely and immediately available to hear. Would you fall in love with someone by having them describe themselves to you or would you spend time with them and through experience see if you fell in love? Would you ask them to describe to you how they kiss, or would you kiss them and experience it for yourself?

I think music is like falling in love or kissing someone. It can’t be described. It can only be experienced. I would rather you listen, multiple times, and then, hopefully, take my music as your lover.

Review Fix: Bottom line, why should someone buy it?

Dodini: Resurrection is a work of significant depth and detail. It has a rich musical and poetic story that leaves room for the listener to add to with their perceptions and experience.

It is a timeless work. It wasn’t made in a style or a category. It is dense and requires spending some time to get to know it. It is like that book that you buy and re-read at regular intervals in your life or when you need to read it again because reading it changes you and thus you change it. You read it and afterward you saw yourself or someone else or the world differently. Thus the mirrors you see reflect your new perceptions back to you.

You read it again, and now you see its other angles and layers even ones the author didn’t see or intend as you bend it and it bends you over and over again. It is a complete package with great artwork and a book of poetry which you can enjoy as complete experiences separate to themselves. Then you can enjoy them all together with new perspectives to heighten the intensity of the overall, integrated work.

Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of the year?

Dodini: I have a new thing where I am trying to stay clear of goals. I have definite things I am going to accomplish with the band: album release; promotion; regional tours; music videos.

I always have a plethora of things I am inspired to do that take a lot of work to manifest. I am really enjoying playing the music with my band and playing it for fans. I am going to keep it simple and enjoy the feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction I get from playing the music on the new album with the band.

I do have a couple of songs I’ve been wanting to produce with a more electronic instrument oriented arrangement. Time permitting I will work on and complete those as well.

Review Fix: What do you feel you have to do to make your dreams in music come true?

Dodini: My dream is to write the music and poetry that flows from the inspiration the muse seems to always be whispering in my ear as accurately and truthfully as I can, and to bring that music to life with a band of great musicians in the presence of an impassioned audience. In that sense my dream is coming true.

I do want to deepen and expand my creative collaborations with other talented people in the arts. I want to expand the audience for Orissa’s music and live performances. There is a line on this new album in the song, “Shades Of Grey.” It says, ‘For those who listen, she unveils the vision.’

It is a bit of an artist’s easter egg to be certain. There is a distinction between hearing and listening. Listening is an active, participatory process. I believe that if I can get people to listen they will be inspired and impassioned and my dream for playing music for an ever wider and appreciative audience all over the world will come true.

It is a process figuring out how to get more people to listen.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Dodini: We just released the first single, ‘Tara.’ It is available on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, Play, Soundcloud and most other digital streaming sources. We are promoting that single. Please give it a listen. It is a scorching track.

Over the next couple of months we will be releasing a couple more singles as well as some kick ass lyric videos. We are also making some videos that feature the band playing live in some cool settings that we will release later in 2017 and into 2018.

Finally, we are playing shows in the Northeast region throughout this fall that will culminate in an album release show in New York City. When we finalize all of those dates we will post them on our Facebook page and announce them to the press. If you are in the area please come out and bring your good energy. We love playing this music live with the fans.