The new recording project “You see when you close your eyes” was written and produced by the same artist traveling around Europe between Paris, London, Amsterdam and Milan and is divided into three musical chapters
Three years have passed since “The geography of darkness” and in these three years many things have happened in the life of Michele Bravi. The foray into cinema, prose and music together with theatre, participation as a judge in “Friends of Maria De Filippi” and a new love. In the midst of all this there was a lot of reading, the investigation into the word and into the conscious and unconscious. “What do you see when you close your eyes” is the new album, out Friday.
The new recording project was written and produced by Michele himself traveling around Europe between Paris, London, Amsterdam and Milan and is divided into three musical chapters. “The look” (time travel, I fell in love with you, you read about the universe, you are important to me) is what we would like to see with others. “The image” (hate, lovesickness, Italian humor, French bad mood feat C.Bruni) is what we see of others and finally “The iris” (childhood in the eyes, if they were looking at us from outside, if I had known you before, dirty poetry, atlas of lovers) is what we try not to let others see. Two collaborations: the duet with Carla Bruni in “French Bad Mood” and with Giuliano Sangiorgi, author of “If I Had Met You Before”. The album cover was created by Mauro Ballettiauthor of Mina’s most iconic covers. Antonio Marras with his sartorial creations he gave a new look to the singer-songwriter.
Why did it take you three years?
I’m not known for my speed and to be honest I had an artistic block.
And how did you get unstuck?
I took a twelve-week course which, in theory, had the objective of connecting you to your inner artist, getting in touch with yourself.
Did you succeed?
I did five weeks and various activities such as sending myself a letter as if I were my own employer who had to convince me to return to the office. I turned into a tailor, so I went around with a tape measure and measured those who asked me for a photo, I even knelt on chickpeas and discovered that it really hurts. I went around with a box containing sad messages from some people and then had a funeral in the park in the evening. I’ve unblocked myself a little.
What restarted the creative process?
A book I had at home and had never read: ‘Musicophilia – Tales about music and the brain’ by neurologist Oliver Sacks.
What message struck you?
The greatest consideration that Sacks makes, analyzing the medical and personal history of his patients, is the individual’s need for a continuous internal story as the only means of maintaining his own identity. It is no coincidence that the imaginative world of the self is the common thread of this album.
This is an intense album but you also talk about lightness with “Umorismo italiano”. How did this piece come about?
I am often associated with the idea that I can be sad or melancholy. I actually live with humor too. In the kitchen I have a board where I wrote how I wanted this album to turn out. They even advised me against telling it because it was too vulgar.
What did you write?
I wanted it to be a record that was a bit of a poet and a bit of a porn star. I laugh a lot at Italian comedy, the simplest humor, I still laugh when someone says the word ‘ass’. In short, I’m talking about exactly this.
“I fell in love with you”, a great quote from Paoli’s masterpiece, does it tell you about your new love?
Yes. At Christmas I decided to give a song to my partner. I started from that title because I liked to overturn the meaning of that text and, at a certain point, I wrote among the many things in the list: ‘another time it’s when you get the subjunctives wrong and you’re damn funny to be upset about it and it doesn’t change me Nothing’. This morning when I left the house he told me ‘now everyone will know that I get the subjunctives wrong’ (laughs, ed.).
Then the meeting with Carla Bruni…
The most generous artist I have collaborated with. She immediately fell in love with the song. We didn’t want to go to the recording studio but to a room in one of the historic hotels in Milan.
Why this choice?
‘French Malumore’ was born in a hotel room, which is why we liked to reproduce the same particular vibrations that inspired the song. The thing I liked most, as an author, is that she put herself totally at the service of the song in a generous way. She wanted to be direct so that it was exactly how I had it in mind.
