From Area to Franco Battiato, passing through the French-Greek chansonnier Georges Moustaki and the Berber singer-songwriter Idir, Radiodervish explore four of their authors of reference in «Cuore meridiano» (Cosmasola Edizioni Musicali), a new recording project which also includes a revisitation in more rock key of «Giorni senza memoria», the unreleased song that had marked the meeting between the formation of Nabil Salameh and Michele Lobaccaro and Massimo Zamboni of Cccp (later Csi). The album will be presented as a preview at the Libreria Zaum in Bari (in via Cardassi, 93), in a meeting with Luca Basso, at 8pm on Friday 21 June, coinciding with the release on digital platforms, while it will be purchasable in CD format from June 28th and on vinyl from July 28th.
A musical jewel, «Cuore meridiano» therefore includes four songs from Mediterranean authors who have shaped the soul and sensitivity of the Apulian band and which for Radiodervish represent a necessary message for our era.
The reinterpretation of their compositions, through the arrangements made with Alessandro Pipino and the contribution of Pippo D’Ambrosio, Andrea Senatore and Adolfo La Volpe, is therefore loaded with new meanings compared to current times, starting with the revisitation of «July August September ( black)”, a progressive piece from Area’s manifesto album “Arbeit Macht Frei” which, through the voice of a Palestinian (“I sing my people who don’t want to die”), is enriched with new references to the genocide underway in Gaza. Radiodervish tackle a progressive rock classic by transforming the original version, characterized by a powerful rhythmic charge and musical complexity, into a composition that maintains its emotional intensity through an equally powerful filter, capable of enhancing the political character and civil denunciation of the song, so much so that Patrizio Fariselli, founder of Area, said, «I’m finally listening to a personal and courageous version of our piece». Furthermore, the intervention of the children’s choir which stands out at the end with the phrase «Playing with the world by tearing it to pieces» repeated like a nursery rhyme is particularly exciting.
We also hear an affectionate homage to a classic of Mediterranean music in the cover of «Le temps de vivre» by Georges Moustaki, a naturalized French singer-songwriter of Italian-Greek-Egyptian origin. Radiodervish have kept the poetic and nostalgic essence of the original song intact, adding a personal touch and ensuring that every note is carefully chosen to convey that message of freedom and invitation to live in the present contained in the verses «Nous prendrons le temps de vivre / D’être libres, mon amour” (We will take the time to live/to be free, my love).
With «The season of love» then comes a joyful and respectful tribute to Franco Battiato, who has always been a leading light in Radiodervish’s production and is present in other moments of this mini-album with a series of echoes. The band maintains the essence of the original song which reads «lost horizons never return» and enriches it with its own unique and distinctive style by bringing together the initial electronics, a clear reference to the lost horizons of the Eighties, in a final in which the sound of the classical orchestra takes center stage.
The interpretation of «Pourquoi cette pluie» by the Algerian singer-songwriter Idir, an exponent of the Berber culture of Kabylia, is proposed, however, as a deep immersion in Mediterranean sounds influenced by world music. Radiodervish capture and rework the essence that releases Idir’s mix of Algerian folk and chanson française, enriching the song with a particular touch and an intense vocal interpretation, a tribute to the lyrical depth of a text that explores the themes of suffering and hope in the story of the long and bloody period of the Algerian civil war of the 1990s, which Idir exorcises in the verses «Pourquoi cette pluie, pourquoi est-ce un message, est-ce un cri du ciel» («Because this rain, because it is a message, it is a cry from heaven”) with a metaphor in which we can see the crying of the sky for the suffering caused by the war but also a moment of collective purification.
Finally, the physical presence of the song «Giorni senza memoria», previously released only in the form of a video clip and here rearranged in a rock key once again with Massimo Zamboni’s electric guitars, increasingly in the foreground, is unprecedented. The song, written by Michele Lobaccaro and Nabil Salameh in the form of a ballad, finds space in this project due to its extremely current content and becomes an invitation to reflect on the genocides and crimes against humanity which, unlike the Holocaust, remain “without memory”, from the extermination of the Native Americans to the Armenian holocaust, from the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by the atomic bombs dropped on Japan to the criminal madness of the Khmer Rouge, up to the Israeli apartheid against the Palestinian people.
«But today, when the living witnesses of that terrible genocide perpetrated in the heart of Europe are disappearing, and the problem arises of how not to forget without falling into rhetoric – explain Radiodervish – the path will probably be precisely that of broadening our gaze on the theme of evil in its multifaceted manifestation, always present and possible, without risking crystallizing it and making it absolute in a very specific event, overcoming partial visions and contributing to the active construction of a living memory continuously in dialogue with current events, in a optics of hope, as suggested by the refrain of “Days without memory” through the words “Through incomprehensible laws after the darkness you know a light will be born”».
«Cuore meridiano – Radiodervish continues – is a small but significant project for us in which we perform covers that testify to the continuous dialogue that has always existed between the shores of the Mediterranean. In our opinion it is important to remember it to make it known to the new generations, unfortunately children of the poisoned climate that was produced, symbolically, after 11 September, since the idea of a world destined for an inevitable war of civilizations was made official” .
«Without having to take an excessive leap back in time – Radiodervish continue – we can see how in the 60s, 70s and 80s of the last century, numerous artists showed themselves sensitive to the subtle correspondences between the peoples of the Mediterranean. An era in which the beating of the “Meridian Heart” was audible, but which, unfortunately, was subsequently suffocated and watered down into harmless folklore by the cultural hegemony of neoliberalism that established itself from the 1990s onwards. Therefore, Battiato, Area, Mustaki and Idir emerge as a significant vanguard of a musical and intellectual world that deserves rediscovery and within which these artists, with their sensitivity, can continue in times of conflict to offer a cognitive and emotional experience of inestimable value.”
(photo radiodervish heart meridian)
