Daniele Faraotti

English aphasia

Estratti delle tracce

English Aphasia

I got the blues

Connection

Between for a day trust

Zawie III

Leonore sprache

Sea elephant

Telephone line

Joni George Igor and me

From 27 April 2019 available for purchase on iTunes, Spotify, Apple music, etc. If you can't resist, you can buy it immediately on bandcamp.

“A song must be like the world. It must contain everything”.

After stealing the quote from Gustav Mahler for his own definition of music, (changing symphony with song) Daniele Faraotti opened his album Canzoni in Salita (Bombanella records 2012).
After a brief pause with In Cage’s Shoes (exit from the cage – 2014), the concept of musical elements revealing a whole world remains present in the songs of English Aphasia. Even though the process is different, the spontaneous and improvised features of the songwriting still remain. The music is left untouched in its spontaneous state from the first performance: unplanned improvisations with an impromptu chord progression. Beatloop, melody and nonsense lyrics sung in gromalot English – an aphasic English of first drafts. The development of arrangements aiming to leave unaltered the first draft has proven to be quite time consuming.
There is only one song in Italian - “Sea Elephant” a parody of Lennon’s “I am the walrus”. What is high in the “walrus” song goes low in this version. The lyrics of this version is a parody of Lennon’s song juxtaposing opposite images.

Daniele Faraotti has published since 2008 two albums and two Eps : Ciò che non sei più [what you no longer are](Album – Alka Record 2008); Ciò che non sai più [what you don’t know any more] (EP – Alka Records 2009); Canzoni in salita [songs going uphill] (Album – Bombanella 2012); In Cage’s Shoes (Exit from the cage 2014).

Daniele’s CV features him collaborating in a project with P. Pravo in 1994. He takes part in the creation of Caludio Lolli’s album La Scoperta dell’America and then: a degree in guitar and composing, internships, teaching qualifications… and so on...
Daniele played in the orchestra at the 2015 Angelica Festival and as guitarist in 2016. He is about to complete the recordings of the first Experience Excentrique album which will be published in November 2019 also with Creamcheese Records.

English Aphasia features 9 tracks

ENGLISH APHASIA – the title track of the album. A stratification of various elements starting with a toy-drum loop; a continuum guides this free improvisation, no chorus, the melody reaches an obsessive ending sequence all in one go.

I GOT THE BLUES – the 12/8 tempo arpeggio reminded me of the Rolling Stones’ song with the same name but there are no notes in common. Everything is articulated in a different way but with a slight reminiscence.

CONNECTION – it features the same loop from “English Aphasia” but faster. The toy-keyboard is played in the style of Zawinul on a very obstinate bass. The melody written in one go comes inexplicably to a refrain, the song is about to shatter.

BETWEEN FOR A DAY TRUST – this is a song that wants to be a world.

ZAWIE III – one day my nephew came in the studio and cried : “Dani, Bowie is dead!”. Of course, the latest photos didn’t show him in great shape but I certainly didn’t expect him to die even though I sensed that something was up. In the last 2 years I’ve been outlining some ideas linked to Bowie and classing them: bowie 1, bowie 2, bowie 3. Initially, English Aphasia was supposed to be called Bowie 1. The keyboard part is reminiscent of “Whiter shade of pale”. The monotonous song opens up towards the end. Instead of saying bowie we say zawie because of Bowie Zowie and also because of Zappa wowie zowie, like the wrong pronunciation.

LEONORE SPRACHE – the song builds around the opening keyboard track. After various attempts… eureka! We found it: the horn from “Il Sorpasso” by Risi, the bells from Bergman’s “The Silence”, the duet of Gassman / Trinignant, some spoken fragments from “Fidelio” and Beethoven’s Singspiel.

SEA ELEPHANT - “I am the walrus”, “the inner light”, “old brown shoes”, “rain” and “tomorrow never knows” are the Beatles’ songs that have inspired me the most. To me these songs represented the future years after the 70’s. As it happens, many artists were inspired by these songs and created their own imitations, elaborations and analysis that remain still to this day. Recorded in 2005 with the current title, “Sea Elephant” has been re-mixed, re-sung, re-doubled with new violin and theremin tracks.

TELEPHONE LINE – after doing four versions we found the right one. I listened to the track a ridiculous amount of times that I lost track of all objectivity, I was ready to either give it up or bring back one of the previous versions. So, after working so long on the other versions this seemed like the “more better one”. I also merged some of the other versions together to complete the track.

JONI, GEORGE, IGOR AND ME – a song improvised on the “african chorus” sound effect ( Logic’s Instrument Software ). Its impromptu nature is built around a layering of vocals as well as a voice in the distance, a sitar, trumpets and various percussions. In some harmonic digressions I hear a bit of Joni Mitchell. The trumpets remind me of the Symphony of Psalms by Stravinsky, and in other moments I hear Harrison. Thus the album bids “good night” to the listener.

Mixing with Davide Cristiani at Bombanella Soundescape in Maranello and with Franco Naddei at Cosabeat Studio in Forlì.
The album has been written, played, arranged and sung by Daniele Faraotti.
Valeria Sturba (violin, theremin and chorus), Paolo Rainieri (trumpet and saxhorn), Alessio Alberghini (flute), Daniele D’Alessandro (clarinet), Simone Pederzoli (trombone), Luca Fattori (chorus), Phil Faraotti (chorus) have contributed in making this album sound more human. The Master is of Bernie De Bernardi by Eleven Mastering in Busto Arsizio.