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A new album by Daniele Faraotti should be a small event (and certainly not only in the city) because there are not many Italian musicians (and Bolognese in particular), perennially engaged in the search for new languages ​​with which to convey emotions, instead of traveling comfortably beaten roads.
Faraotti is one who destroys preconstructed patterns and recreates his own and one who loves music and kicks it. And in this way it keeps it going.
As we can hear from the latest work ENGLISH APHASIA, now on all digital platforms, with which the guitarist gives us the best we have ever heard from time immemorial. There are more ideas in these new tracks than in 90% of Italian production in recent years: which is a good thing for him, bad for what we have been listening to for too long, and even worse for those who have ears too accustomed to mediocrity. to grasp the genius of these solutions which, to those who are years old and listen on their backs, can certainly remember Robert Wyatt, the Canterbury School, certainly sophisticated progressive, or a certain songwriting outside the box (Tim Buckley?), but to everyone else they should simply open horizons.
Ecco quello che fa questo disco: apre orizzonti a chi non riesce più a guardare lontano, mostra strade nuove a chi ha orecchie e cuore e, soprattutto, voglia di andare lontano.

The interview


So here's the new album
Yes, a job for which I experimented with a new approach, for me, working much more on keyboards and the computer than on the guitar, more on the melodic aspect than on the harmonies. The idea was to create very simple songs, the difficulty was then to maintain this simplicity in the arrangement and recording phase.

I feel some reminiscence of Robert Wyatt
At the time of Soft Machine he spoke of some of his compositions in terms of melancholy nonsense, melancholy nonsense, a concept that has always remained in my mind and that I think I have taken up in this work.

What a mix of song, prog, dada, experimentalism ...
E altro, sento un po’ di Joni Mitchell in Joni, George, Igor and me, qualcuno magari sente i Procol Harum nelle tastiere di Zawie II o Zawinul in quella giocatolo di Connection. Deve funzionare così.

Just Zawie II is a tribute to David Bowie
It had been nearly two years that I had been writing down ideas that could be traced back to Bowie whom I called Bowie 1, Bowie 2, Bowie 3. English Aphasia itself was initially Bowie 1.

Sea Elephant has a particular history
It is a song modeled on I'm the walrus by the Beatles, an incredible song from all points of view: I translated it into Italian, overturning all its meanings and musically I transformed the chords into a major minor ...
In reality the piece had already been recorded in 2005 as Elefante marino, but here it is resumed, re-mixed, re-sung, re-doubled with new recordings in the violin and theremin parts.

It is also the only song sung in Italian ...
Yes, the others are in an indefinable language that resembles English.

Will you bring this work to the stage?
This autumn. I'm thinking of a very flexible band, made up of musicians able to play different instruments, but there will be no drums. The difficulty, as always, is finding spaces and spaces suitable for this music, but the idea is to focus on live shows for a defined period, not always be ready to go wherever there is a possibility.

Distribution of the album?
The usual digital platforms. I created my own label - Creamcheese Record - and let's see how it goes. But today the recording aspect and its mechanisms are almost indecipherable. Going out with a large record company no longer guarantees anything, working with independent labels presents other problems… So maybe it's better to do it yourself by exploiting the possibilities of the web.
Lucio Mazzi