Article by Marzia Picciano
When i YES! BOOM! VOILÀ!aka Michelangelo Mercuri that is to say NAIP, Roberta Sammarelli, Giulio Ragno Favero, Davide Lasala And Giulia Formicaif introductions are needed, “only” among the most talented representatives of Italian music – and whose name was practically born from a game of names-cities-things – have come out into the open with the complicity of Woodworm Label launching an alienating single like PINOCCHIOafter two months of gestation of the product based on comic-pedagogical content (“we were guided by the muse Entertainment”, assures Michelangelo) for the public, I asked myself, like many others: ok, so what to expect?
“We too are discovering it today” they answer me practically in unison when we meet them a few minutes before the presentation event on January 9th Voice in Triennial. And they do it with sincerity: after all, if doubt arises, the uncertain, at the center of your, let's call it without subtext, marketing strategy (and there are no SMMs), you launch the album on the same day as the start of the tour this January 16th in Livornoaccept the pleasure of surprise.
At the end of it all, however, I feel like the one who illegitimately calls into question the normal, almost banal, need of a group of individuals, perfectly formed in their artistic identity, to get together, choose each other conscientiously, above all choose the voice (if you listen to them, before arriving at NAIPit was a real hunger game) to make music, to communicate, and feel good, do good, which is always needed, needed now.
What should I expect from a band if not the desire to feel alive and aware of the horrible world we live in and witness?
In eleven tracks, the urgency of life of YES!BOOM!VOILÀ! takes on all the forms that belong to it. If interviewing them was definitely interesting, listening to them tell their stories from Voce was even moving. Two ballads previewed in this social experiment of question and answer implemented by the band prove this.
I'm talking about the last track of the album, From Zeroindeed the first on which the band worked, signed by Roberta, and which really exudes all the catastrophic restlessness of Verdena in that “you can lose weight with me“, And Works in progress. A real work, the written elaboration of a trauma, that of Davide's panic attacks, by Michelangelo, on which the strings of the guitars and bass climb like Corinthian capitals, to dissolve in a final echo of choirs.
The idea behind the YES! BOOM! VOILÀ!is really very simple, and yet for some absurd reason and economic-social evolution, which has become almost impracticable today: remaining human in this part of the world called entertainment, which is still part of humanity. Asking questions on this freezing evening in Milan is a conscious kamikaze choice, as well as an action to combat the passive-aggressive nature of keyboard comments, says Michelangelo.
Ready to go? More than being ready, they can't wait. Giulia says that she has always done everything to the end, from school to learning the pieces: “At this moment I won't tell you that I feel ready, but I will be“. For Roberta “rationally the answer is yes, but emotionally no. Let's hope that that emotionality finally comes into agreement with rationality and they both become yes”.
There was a long gestation phase of the project.
Creating and joking. Michelangelo says that making creative content, such as short promos, “it opened a lot of doors for us, especially among ourselves, because we already knew we were good at playing. I was amused to see the amused reactions of those who follow us. We took the silly things seriously, which is the trick to making funny things.” Giulio adds: “We got along so well that we decided to face 200 people who will ask us a thousand questions. We're loose now”.
Ready or not, in my mind now there are not only five artists who tell a story, a significant experience, a dedicated fan base: they are also superheroes à la Marvel from the universe of alternative music, you see it when you group them together, in attack the socio-existentialist analysts of Giulio and Michelangelo, the palpable controlled intensity of Roberta, in line with that of Davide, the explosive freshness of Giulia.
Our superheroes seek dialogue, an exchange approach. We need to go back to saying things to each other's faces, leading people to expose themselves in front of everyone. “But how difficult is it to raise your hand and say your opinion and ask a question? My English teacher Gallo said: until you raise your hand I don't know if you want to tell me something. This action has a different value than doing it in a sometimes very light, sometimes very superficial way online.”
“It's time to shorten the distance between audience and artist.”
Giulio says that “We really took ridiculous distances, we all became superstars. You talk about a supergroup, and that's true, because we were all people around, but in our case the group was born because we wanted to play together. Should we ask ourselves the problem of being judged because we see things like that? I feel like saying that we shouldn't give a shit.”
How long has it been since acoustic presentations in Feltrinelli or FNAC? “In my opinion it is much more interesting to be in a place and talk. Today we only do it through a platform of someone who gets rich on our hates and loves, we are unpaid workers of these people here. And we are sorry that the only contact we can have with those who listen to us only has to go through the concert”, when you manage to go to the banquet before seeing the room send the audience away. “It seems to me, but I don't think I'm the only one who feels it, that humanity is lacking a bit of humanity lately.”
Will it be like this in live performances too?
Yes, but no spoilers. “We are also here to not meet people's expectations.” Giulio had even proposed not recording the album. “Why are people afraid of going to a concert today without knowing what they are going to see? Today we are full of information on everything we will do, the possibility of being surprised has been lost.”
But “if today if you don't have the album behind you, you don't have the promoter” adds Roberta. “The bravest choice we've made to date is to release the album on the day of the first date, which definitely goes against the grain compared to what everyone else does lately. We decided to take a risk and bring things to a more human state: get off your ass and come and see something that you didn't plan a year, a year and a half ago now. Then, in a year and a half, who can say what person you will be, if you still want to listen to that artist? It's all really very exaggerated not only in the craftsmanship, but also in the planning.”
And for me as a listener, has on-demand increased the human distance with the artist?
“It's a recent thing” says Giulio “once upon a time you didn't press a button and you didn't play music when you wanted. We have the impression that everything should last forever, but instead we are transitory. Maybe in fifty years people will no longer want to listen to music from the speakers.” Davide jokes about the increase in requests for psychological support with the advent of streaming. “Once upon a time, taking drugs was enough” Julius says.
If ours is a combination of a political-cultural action (but politics in this album is an existential dimension) and an attitudinal strategy, we must not confuse the search for humanity as a claim to do new or different things from others.
“Is it compulsory to do new things?”
This is Davide's point. “The record represents the artist up to a certain point” represents Julius. “Already now that we are working on new things, they are very different, they have a very different approach even compared to what we have done in recent days. Life should be lived in the moment in which you realize you are alive and not in the bet of being alive tomorrow.”
For Roberta the crux of the issue is not even trying to rework or do something new. “For me it's more important to rework or do something new than what you were at that moment. Doing the same exact thing again for twenty years is a comfort zone, and you have the right to do it, but it's something exactly contrary to my idea of art, and of inspiration. It must make you want to get involved. The novelty in this project is precisely to do everything that I haven't done up to now, or to do it in a different way.”
It's not just a musical matter, but a human one. Giulia sees it as a search for certainty. “For me, music reflects the society you live in: there was punk, the 70s, 80s, etc. We are living in a chaotic moment, but also one of homologation. I think it is not so much the search for novelty but the expression of a part of society, if we felt the need to express ourselves in this way, we found ourselves in a need, an urgency or discomfort that we are experiencing”.
We are in a moment of chaos, we are coming home, from a certain point of view. Have something a point of reference.
And the YES!BOOM!VOILÀ! they want to do it, catching us off guard.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
