INDIE 5:0 - 5 Q's WITH RAFFAELE SCOCCIA
There’s a quiet intentionality running through the recent work of Raffaele Scoccia. Each note is placed not just with care, but with purpose.
Known for moving between electronic production and more traditional composition, Scoccia has recently returned to the piano as his primary voice, embracing a more direct and unfiltered way of expressing emotion.
His latest piece, "Silent Mountains", reflects that shift. Inspired by time spent in the stillness of the Dolomites, it’s a work shaped as much by silence as sound, capturing a moment of reflection is deeply personal.
In this conversation, Scoccia talks about the experience behind the piece, his journey back to solo piano and the role that silence plays in his compositions, and where this evolving chapter of his music is heading next.
“Silent Mountains” is an intimate piano track. Can you take us back to the day in the Dolomites and describe the moment the melody first came to you?
Recently I went through a very difficult period in my life, which strongly pushed me to seek energy and clarity in nature; so I began spending entire days walking or skiing among the snow-covered mountains of the Dolomites.
That direct contact with nature and the contemplation of the perfect harmony surrounding me sparked, one evening, the inspiration for the melodic form of ‘Silent Mountains’; and after completing it, not without some wonder, I realized that it fully captured the sense of suggestiveness, the perception of beauty and the feeling of renewal that I was experiencing.
You have explored a range of styles over the years, including your work as Moon Rocket. What brought you back to solo piano, and how does this format change your approach to composition?
Classical piano was my first instrument, and my first love. As the years unfolded, my ears wandered across a wide landscape of sounds, until I became captivated by the multifaceted complexity of electronic music. During my time in New York, I decided to turn that passion into something tangible by creating the brand Moon Rocket and founding my music label, Moon Rocket Music. Despite this, I continued to play and compose on the piano, and over time I felt an increasing sense that only through this extraordinary instrument would I have found what I had always sought in music: the emotion of interpreting emotions, both for myself and for others. Without hesitation, I chose to return to my roots, dedicating myself to the study of classical composers and establishing a clear work plan.
Returning to solo piano transformed my entire approach. In electronic music, you build the structure of the composition adding elements and you rely on music software to construct these layers. At the piano, however, everything exists in the moment: whatever you write and record it’s all live in real time, inseparable from the emotions that give it life.
This is what I cherish most, it becomes a dialogue between the soul and the instrument, unmediated and sincere. In a world increasingly shaped by artificial creation, where people more and more rely on AI, there is something profoundly honest in the act of sitting at a piano and allowing feeling to take form through touch and sound. It is a presence that cannot be replicated, a fleeting truth that belongs entirely to the moment in which it is born.
This piece conveys a sense of space and stillness. How do you approach silence when writing, and how important is what you choose to leave out?
This is a delicate matter, for the silence between notes often speaks loudly than the notes themselves. Music is not only shaped by sound, but equally by the silence in between the notes. In piano music especially, pauses can resonate with a depth that surpasses any single tone.
To place them with intention, guiding the listener gently through an inner landscape, is both essential and, at times, deeply challenging. In a world saturated with noise, where everything clamors to be heard, stillness and pause have become rare and often overlooked virtues.
Yet it is precisely within these quiet intervals that music breathes, gathers meaning and reveals its most intimate truths.
When you are composing, are you creating purely for yourself or do you have the listener in mind?
When I begin composing a piece, I’m driven by a dual aim: to satisfy myself and to emotionally engage listeners, so that the ‘musical space’ becomes a place of meeting and/or exchange. Seeking the fulfilment of my ‘self’ is an innate need in me to express, through music, particularly intense personal emotions or thoughts, almost as if it were a liberating act.
Alongside this need is a strong desire to find the musical elements best suited to fostering the audience’s emotional involvement, that kind of emotional alchemy that brings us into dialogue and reconnects us.
With "Silent Mountains" out, what is next for you creatively? Can we expect more in this piano led direction, or are you continuing to explore multiple facets of your sound?
The project I have in mind is to continue in the direction I’ve followed so far, developing piano compositions with different stylistic facets, ranging from classical to modern to atmospheric.
For example, after ‘Silent Mountains’, which, although an introspective piece, features a modern, almost descriptive melodic structure, the next release will be ‘La Rivière des Choses,’ a piece characterized by classical and meditative elements, aimed at expressing ideas even before emotions.
Listen to "Silent Mountains" and the latest release "La Rivière des Choses" here:
Follow Raffaele Scoccia on Instagram
tangentwithtanner
ellievsbear
dededos
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
prguitarman
