He had already written the title of the album in a notebook years ago, but he no longer remembered it. He discovered it by chance and took it as a sign of destiny, because it was exactly the core of the concept of the album that he had written: What do you see when you close your eyes. Perched on the counter of a bar in Milan, Michele Bravi today he explains how his new work was born, and to do it he starts with a neurologist: Oliver Sacks and his concept of palinopsia: «It is a term that indicates the images that remain imprinted after closing the eyes, and Sacks reads it as a disorder, an attempt to repeat the perception. I thought that palinopsia is like art that tries to crystallize life. Every song on the album comes from the imagination seen as a link between us and reality: this is the concept of the album.”
Before Sacks, in reality, there had been another book, fundamental for the writing of the album, three years after The geography of darkness: The artist’s way by Julia Cameron. A book that helped him overcome the creative block that had paralyzed him for two years: «It is a 12-week course that has become more of a game and between a letter written to myself and the choice of imaginary jobs for the which to immerse myself in the role, at a certain point I was freed from it.”
And so Michele Bravi began writing for metaphors And synesthesia, because “tell me your story is not the right request to make because it is dangerously synthetic.” The most interesting one, however, is rather that of “tell me what you saw in your story”. He continues: «I tried to celebrate the scenic nature and the melodies of the interior life. How many shows do we see while we live? How many pictures are we painting? I’m terrible at drawing but inside I have beautiful paintings.”
The cover of What do you see when you close your eyes by Michele Bravi.
In What do you see when you close your eyes there is also the first love song with a dedication to her current partner, but things didn’t go so well. The song is I have fallen in love with you: «I started from the title of Tenco to overturn that song and make it very sweet and romantic. In one verse I said something about my partner’s difficulty in conjugating subjunctives and he was offended: “Well now everyone will know that I get the subjunctives wrong”. And to think that it’s the first time I’ve written a record when I’m not single.” Well done. laughs.
For the new album he worked with producers linked to trap and urban, worlds very distant from the sound universe and imagination of Bravi, more in tune with melodic songwriting: «But I didn’t distort myself, I tried to bring these worlds closer, when it was possible. I sought an almost cinematic approach, a rarefied sound to leave room for the listener to fill the spaces with their imagination.” But it’s not a sad record: «I like it when they consider me a snobbish and decadent poet, when they tell me “make us cry”. For French bad mood she’s born the idea of the duet with Carla Bruni. But I also have another side that ended up in Italian humor: that immediate raspberry humor.”
Today Bravi is 29 years old and «in the world of recording I am considered old». He was 19 when he won X Factor, he is now an adjudicator Friends. he understands well the pressure that led an emerging player like Sangiovanni to stop: «When at 20 they told me I had failed it was as if they were talking about me and not my record. Today, when kids who participate in a talent show are more exposed, the words and tone used with them are even more important.”
