Premiere and Interview: Luca Sapio's "Luv & Hate"

The Roman Musician Tackles Art, Identity, and the Sonic Resistance of an Analog Loving Soul Producer Living in a Digital World

In a time when music often vanishes into the digital ether moments after it's made, Black Waves arrives like a message in a bottle: carefully crafted, richly detailed, and meant to be held. It's a work shaped by global events but grounded in something deeply human: the need to connect, to reflect, and to preserve. Across this thoughtful conversation with Luca Sapio—producer, performer, label founder, and lifelong crate-digger—we discover the shared pulse that runs through us all, whether we're in Rome or Richmond, Naples or New Jersey. It's a reminder that even as cultures differ, a good beat that we can dance to often brings us back to the same place.

I'm especially pleased to share that this piece marks the official world premiere of Luca Sapio’s single "Luv & Hate"—a track that stands as both a sonic centerpiece of his upcoming album Black Waves (pre-order here) and a meaningful meditation on contrasts that live side by side in cities, relationships, and within ourselves. Speaking from his studio in Rome, Luca offers a rare window into a world of analog reverb, hand-cataloged vinyl, and hard-earned wisdom. He records the classic way, not to chase retro aesthetics, but because real things—like community, artistry, and emotion—deserve tangible formats.

Black Waves, out July 18th, isn’t just a new release; it may be an artifact in the making. As Luca describes his love of physical media, his family-run Blind Faith Records, and the team of musicians who helped bring this album to life, it becomes clear that this isn’t just about sound, it's about spirit. It’s about slowing down enough to appreciate what's in front of us. And whether you're listening on vinyl, through headphones, or across a conversation like this, what matters most is the feeling it leaves behind.

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Evan Toth: Black Waves has been called a cinematic soul journey. What stories or experiences from your life inspired this record’s emotional  and political depth? 

Luca Sapio: The first memory I have of the record is standing in line outside the  supermarket. We were all wearing masks and gloves and there was a guy passing with an infrared thermometer to check for a fever. At the same time others were making sure that people kept a safe distance.  

Probably that strange situation, which then became normal for a long time, gave me the urgency to start writing something. Immediately after the Black Lives Matter protests following Floyd’s murder, again fuel on the fire that had started years earlier with the  murder of Trayvon Martin. Then suddenly, the war in Ukraine…and amidst all this horror, the birth of my daughter, a powerful surge of  love that made me realize how much we must commit ourselves  because, in the end, it will be today’s children who save tomorrow’s world. 

ezt: Your music draws from Italian vintage soundtracks and American soul traditions. How do you navigate honoring those traditions while also challenging cultural boundaries through your art? 

ls: Italy has always looked with great interest at the grand adventure of African American music. Jazz, although banned during fascism and thus an underground music, was so loved that radio hosts— great jazz musicians themselves, like Gorni Kramer, or bandleaders like Pippo Barzizza—would Italianize the names of American musicians to broadcast jazz: Louis Armstrong became Luigi  Braccioforte, Benny Goodman was Benito Buonuomo. The Italian  soundtrack was heavily influenced by this “evangelization.” Piero Umiliani and Piero Piccioni were among the first to produce entirely jazz soundtracks in the late 1950s. There is thus a very strong connection between the Italian soundtrack and what later became the “backbeat” typical of soul music. 

ezt: Your next album will be available on vinyl. What role do you think analog formats - like vinyl - play in preserving and communicating the emotional weight of albums like Black Waves? 

ls: Some say that 500 physical copies of a work are enough to grant it immortality. Time has shown how volatile digital is. Even the CD has proven unable to maintain readability, not to mention hard drives or the vast universe of files that continues to grow across various clouds, which are extremely vulnerable. Vinyl, however,  remains a readable medium like tape. It has weight. I believe it’s right to assign a real weight to the things we want to leave and survive beyond ourselves. 

ezt: As a producer, performer, and label owner, how do you see your work contributing to the long arc of musical storytelling especially in the age of short-form digital content? 

ls: Most talents nowadays emerge from TikTok. The scroll looks like the glass of an aquarium where we are the fishes, and the artists are the ones banging their fists against the glass and making strange faces to attract our attention. It’s into this misery that the majors do their scouting. They seek the famous purple cow to squeeze and clone until they find a rose. That’s why music no longer has a message. It no longer scares, denounces, stops wars,  makes us reflect, or questions. It’s just a funnel to sell more, it’s not at the center anymore. However, there is a parallel economy, silent, a phenomenal niche of independent artists and labels that do the exact opposite, putting music at the center. I simply try to follow that path.

ezt: Your record label, Blind Faith Records, is deeply DIY and rooted in soul tradition. What lessons do you hope younger musicians and composers take from your approach? Conversely, what lessons have you learned to make the label what it is today? 

ls: The other day I discovered on Muso.ai charts that Blind Faith Records is in the “top 1% of labels.” We’re talking about a label still run by a family, with the warehouse at the entrance of my house, the recording studio in the back, and it often happens that I myself package the orders for our clients. Our small catalog is constantly sold out, and very often we can’t reprint a requested title to invest in new productions. No one has ever thought of getting rich; the spirit is to make records we’d want to buy or have in our collection. Many musicians involved in my studio are very young, others are veterans; some arrangers are well over seventy. The idea is to create a sum of free energies flowing without preconceptions. Music is never made alone. I always distrust albums where it’s boldly stated that the artist played everything by himself. I want the new generations to understand the power of playing together, the team just as the house bands of the great labels of the past, the Funk Brothers, Memphis Boys, the Wrecking Crew, and even our renowned Marc 4, have shown us. 

ezt: Tell me about your recording studio in Rome. I understand you've got a Hammond B3 that Jimmy Smith picked out himself. What are you most proud of in your studio? 

ls: My studio is the expression of a pathology commonly known as “compulsive accumulation.” It’s the result of decades spent investigating studios and reconstructing sounds from records that struck me. Quite notably, the Hammond chosen by Jimmy Smith for his European tours is a highlight, as is my collection of  microphones, which besides all the iconic vintage Neumann U’s, also includes several Japanese and Russian oddballs. I’m also a fanatic of Tel Ray reverbs a Tuna can-like device with a cylinder filled with electrolytic toxic oil, equipped with a motor, flywheel, and  pickup that rotates inside the can, generating wobbling echoes. I have about ten of them.

ezt: Given your work in radio and journalism, what have you learned about the power of the voice, both in conversation and in song? 

The voice is a mystery. No one exactly knows where it originates or how it’s generated, but it’s like a fingerprint. The power of a voice lies precisely in that—its recognizability at first listen. 

ezt: Your first release from the record - the song we're premiering  today - features legendary funk guitarist Dennis Coffey on the track. How did you come about connecting with him and what was your understanding of his work previous to having him perform on your  own music? 

ls: Dennis Coffey is a legend. The man who helped revolutionize,  together with the formidable Norman Whitfield, the sound of  Motown. His wah guitar on "Cloud Nine" by The Temptations is the blueprint of the Motown psychedelic sound. I was fortunate enough to interview him and speak at length, getting him to tell and reveal many secrets of the “snake pit” of Motown. Dennis was part of one of the most important moments in music history that influenced me greatly and confirmed how crucial focus in the studio is. Motown was modeled after Ford’s assembly line, producing at very high speeds, three songs in an hour and a half. He played just on 4 tracks of the album but I have learned so many tricks from him. 

ezt: You are an Italian based in Rome, tell me about your experiences with the concepts of "Luv & Hate" on the streets of Roma today. What are some of the local influences that inspired you to explore these ideas on this album? 

ls: Rome is a city that’s dangerously regressing. “Bulli e Coltelli” - brawls and duels - have returned, like at the end of the eighteenth century, where hundreds of people died from stab and cut wounds. It seems the dark side is winning over the beauty of a city that has no equal in terms of art and architecture. Love and hate are exactly this strange balancing act: a thin line. It’s the enigmatic expression of Giuditta in Caravaggio’s poignant painting preserved at Palazzo Barberini here in Roma. She cuts the head of Holofernes, and it’s hard to tell from her face if she’s distant, annoyed, or proud. 

ezt: Can you give some technical details about how you recorded  the new album? What was the signal chain? Who mixed and mastered it and where will it be pressed? 

ls: Technically, the record was very complex to produce. With the  lockdowns and curfews we had, it was difficult to meet in the studio, and when we did, there was always tension for fear that someone could be a “carrier." I have a very strange memory of the string orchestra lined up in my studio with masks. I was forced to use different mic techniques to maintain safe distances between the musicians. Crazy! This is why I decided to postpone and once the “pandemic inconvenience” was over, I personally oversaw all the audio recordings and mixing. Technically speaking the signals captured in analog were immediately converted and assigned in Pro Tools to the mixer—a heavily modified Studer console where the mix buses use the same transformers as legendary vintage Neve and API consoles.

The world becomes hybrid; each channel, through a crowded patch bay, has a different insert—Pultec and Klein &  Hummel equalizers, Highland Dynamics compressors, Urei—and  similarly, innovative plugins that help me not so much to color the sound but to be surgical in cutting boring frequencies, drawing impossible curves for analog machines. The final master was then done by Mike Bozzi at Bernie Grundman’s legendary Los Angeles studios. I personally took care of the lacquer and finally sent it to press at a secret plant in Poland. 

ezt: I saw some pictures on your website of your record collection. Can you tell us what you've got there on your shelves in Rome? How does your collection inspire you as a musician and producer?

ls: I am what is commonly called a crate digger. For years of my life, I  searched for records everyday. I looked for them everywhere: at  people's homes, in junk shops, flea markets, specialized stores, and even in remote shops; in private radio archives; everywhere my  spidey-sense suggested the presence of records. Rest assured, if I come across a crate thrown in the dirt within seconds you’ll find me kneeling there, digging. I wrote hundreds of handwritten letters to stores overseas and even made phone calls when an international call of a few minutes cost as much as a full tank of gas. 

Through the years my collection become more rational, primarily soundtracks and Italian library music, and predominantly R&B,  soul, and jazz from around the world, spanning from the 1950s to  the 1970s. I even ended up in the bible of collectors, the famous book Dust &  Grooves by Eilon Paz, alongside Questlove, Gilles Peterson, Egon, and other recognized authorities. 

Records are my main source of inspiration. Now I have a workflow that, for space reasons, I’ve limited to about ten thousand vinyl records, none of which anyone except me knows the cataloging system for. 

ezt: Looking back, how would you like Black Waves to be remembered in the broader cultural record—not just as an album,  but as a historical artifact of its time? 

ls: Black Waves is the sense of disorientation in the face of the parameters we are used to that suddenly jump. It’s the aberration of a minority in power who has decided to suppress what they have called minorities. It’s the world on fire; it’s the inability to move beyond a past that haunts us and keeps returning everywhere. It’s isolation and the lack of communication, but also the desire to get out of it—to believe in something, in others, in the future.