There are artists who take the luxury of surprising, even to disappoint. Angela Baraldi is one of them. He says it with the tranquility of those who have a career behind music, cinema and theater behind them, and with the determination of those who still want to play, to experiment. His new album 3021 It's all this: a sound journey that starts from the earth, flies to space and returns to us with eight songs that refuse every superstructure. Recorded with the complicity of Federico Fantuz, it is a job that Angela finally defines his: “For the first time there is no distance between the idea and the final result. I took all the responsibilities without delegating to others and this thing gratifies me a lot ». Rock mixes with space synths, guitars such as satellites and batteries that pulsate electrical hearts inside. But it is also very human and the words get off the cosmos to land on authentic feelings.
Angela Baraldi, as he told us in this interview, grew up in the Bolognese underground, between bands that played in smoky clubs and collaborations with giants such as Lucio Dalla and Francesco De Gregori (who produced the disc with his label, the caravan) . Yet his ability to look forward remained intact: «This planet is tired and to imagine the future I used the imagination. I don't know if what I do is rock, but I know I want to risk ». In 3021 It talks to us about stars, of beauty, of time that flows. And precisely on the beauty exhibited and now stigmatized, in particular of the women's body, it has no doubts: “It seems to me a bullshit to criticize Elodie”.
There is also a tribute to his mother, who imagines smoking on the moon with a space suit. It is his way to remind us that even the most distant trips always start from the closest emotions, from the desire to surprise themselves and, why not, to make mistakes.
3021 It is an out of time album, even out of space. At least the terrestrial one, since he investigates the cosmos and does not chase the new trends. How do you feel to return with such a free album in a market that seems more and more homogenized?
I am excited and I am really very well. I feel this album centered, I finally feel mine and I want to defend it. For the first time there is no distance between what I imagined at the beginning and the final result. It's all very close to how I wanted it. Probably because I produced the album together with other people, but without delegating anything. I took responsibility for every decision and this gratifies me. Feeling me that it is also a nice record can only please me.
You, who started in the Bolognese underground circuit, how do you live the new world between social, streaming and fluid music?
Let's say there are two floors. On a personal level it was not complicated, because I worked looking for maximum sincerity, taking away fears and insecurities related to how society goes. On an external, social level, it was difficult. The pandemic has accentuated everything. I felt that a world was fading to make room for another. There was the feeling of loss, some clubs closed, I waited to pass the high tide. When I re -emerged, the skyline had changed. It was a feeling to elaborate, with my way of working.
You collaborated with many great artists, from Lucio Dalla to Gianni Morandi, from Samuele Bersani to Luca Carboni. Is there anything that unites them?
They all unite the passion to work, which therefore takes on another value. Because the process changes radically. When you do a job that exposes you on a personal and emotional level, it is essential to defend what you do, even if the others tell you that it is not good. It can be painful, especially when it is not recognized or you cannot do it as you would like. Quarrels in recording studios or with record companies are on the agenda. You feel like when you bring a child to school and tell you that she is good or not good. But this is also why it is an extraordinary profession.
The artists mentioned are all born or raised in Bologna, like you. Is this uniting passion and work a characteristic trait of that city?
Bologna is different. The competition is more bland, there is a lot of osmosis among the artists. The mainstream and the underground intertwine in a strong way, as in the tortellini broth. Now I live in Rome, which I love very much, but there the atmosphere is a little more competitive. It is a healthy competition, but it is more difficult to train groups. In Bologna, however, there have always been many bands. This makes you understand that there is a stronger playful aspect.
You explained that you had “imagined the sound of spheres, planets and deep space and we tried to reproduce it using guitars, bass, drums and some synth”. Is this album the soundtrack for the new space to the space launched by Elon Musk?
Mine is a romantic race, without an economic return. They are sidereal trips that I make it alone. This planet is tired, so imagine the space and the future forced me to bring out my imagination. For me, the space has to do with the desire and the remote future. I will not get there, none of us will get there today at 3021, but the space that will come is at least imaginable. In this it has to do with the technology, with which we feel able to do more things than those that we actually be able to do.
The future was also a central theme in Lucio Dalla, your friend and with whom you collaborated. So much so that you were the first to hear Carusian In that hotel in Sorrento …
The classic ass blow that can only be 20 years old. He had the habit of going around, working fantasy on what he saw, sometimes without even really writing. Then he went home, closed in the studio, wrote what he had lived and reworked him.
Is it also your working method?
Lucio was even freer, an extraordinary antenna to capture what would happen. I need to sit at a table, like a good schoolboy, and write and rewrite. It is my method, but there is not only one valid. Instead, he worked more instinctively, on what he understood in the air. But who does this job is a bit of a repeater of the emotions they encounter.
By presenting the record you said: «I took the luxury of surprising or maybe even to disappoint those who follow me. To the artists I love this too … ». It can be added that, for many reasons, are the artists today led to the risk of disappointing?
You interpreted it well, even if I don't like making comparisons between yesterday and today. The jump in the darkness of an artist has something special, it is something extraordinary, always to be admired, even when you crash. I find less interesting those who follow roads already beaten. I was a teenager between '77 and 80, years in which Sanremo was seen in playback and had no popular feedback. And thanks to my city I listened to very alternative music and consequently very free. So the artist who does not risk attracts me less, but it is my perception, due to personal training.
In short, don't you want to launch dissing to anyone?
If I did, it would help me in promoting the disc. Maybe now let's make a briefing with the label and choose the right goal to dissolve.
You could leave explaining how to Sanremo we went from Lucio Dalla to Tony Effe.
I don't see another Lucio Dalla, this yes. But I don't think it's a Sanremo problem.
You participated in Sanremo in 1993 with Barefoot. How much has changed since then?
It seems a bit always the same. When I went, the scenography was really ugly. But in general Sanremo I have never seen him particularly shine. The artists need to convey what they do and today is a great showcase, but I see a lot of anxiety behind the scenes and therefore hardly those who go up on stage can give their best. This penalizes the artists, who make a bestial deck and arrive on the stage already stressed. If I were to manage that event, I would try to create a less tense atmosphere. As for the quality, I don't think it lowered, even before there was a lot of questionable stuff. But if you brought something cool, he got back. If there is power it works, despite everything.
You also wondered if you are rock. What is rock for you?
Rock has many facets. Up to the Nirvana he had become almost annoying. She was born as free music, then she took a completely different turn. Like rap. When they start shooting a lot of money things begin to change. It is a sneer to a conformist society, or at least it should be so, as well as jazz and rap. The origin is always good. Like us, who when we are born we are beautiful and then, slowly, we become shits.
In Beauty Reflect on the passage of time and how it changes us.
Recognizing beauty is an almost divine quality. Today it would be one of the first things to teach at school, now that we are bombed by too many things that distance us from beauty. As well as recognizing true news from a false, a beautiful photo from a bad one. We should train to recognize beauty, it should be a priority, a daily lesson.
What do you think of criticism to those who use their body on stage, in particular to women? As in the case of Elodie, criticized in the past also by Gino Paoli.
I don't see anything wrong with it. They seem to me stupid and obsolete criticism. If Elodie is a beautiful woman, and on stage it shows that she is beautiful, what bad is there? The problem is how we perceive sex and eroticism in this terrible time, not if a woman shows herself. What is a serious problem. We are sexually eased and we have forgotten what eroticism is, what erotic participation means. Who does not mean having sex. I find it more serious, more flat and dangerous. But what exactly said Gino Paoli?
“Today the singers show that show their ass.”
Then the valleys of Song? If I am an artist, do I have to dress in a chastised way? Elodie makes a kind of sensual music and dancing, but even if he sang maximum systems, if he wanted to do it with his ass outside what problem would there be? It seems to me a bullshit to criticize Elodie.
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Photo: Claudia Pajewski Caravan
A rock sneer you insert it in Electric heartwhere at a certain point Canti: “But Allan Poe was also badly taken”.
Allan Poe is a truly uncomfortable character, very important and influential. But in his contemporaneity he was extremely irascible, a real taken badly. Thanks to his badly taken, however, he built a magnificent world. The company did not recognize it. Even worse, he label it in a derogatory way. It was intractable, but his costume articles were provocative. Why don't they come out on his life? It would deserve it.
In Saturn Tell us about those who “want to sit down to smoke with the space suit on the lunar curve”. They look like a current version of the Little prince.
This song is dedicated to my mother, I wrote it to make her smile. She smokes a lot and is 91 years old. He made me laugh imagining it with the space suit to smoke on the moon. She always asks me to sing, so I liked to make her make a space trip.
After Quo vadis, baby?thanks to which you have won several awards, we only showed you occasionally at the cinema. How come?
We should ask the world of cinema. In that case to Sky. Do you think that for the series after the film there was not even the writing department. It was an experiment and was about to go out Criminal novel. I was frightened, why knowing Italy I wondered: a grumpy woman, who says bad words and cigarette cigarettes, will have appealing in this slightly misogynist country? In fact it was like this. But I don't know if it only depended on that. In addition, I had problems with the manufacturer, who was a great asshole, I quarreled it, and maybe he put the sticks in the wheels. It is no coincidence that on the posters instead of my face there was a shoe.
I seem to me one who, when he sends a fuck, does not try regrets.
When I do it there is a lot of satisfaction, then the consequences are paid. But I think I always did it when I was right. Indeed, I'm sure.