In the last year I have met Marco Jacopo Bianchi on several occasions: some concerts, his and his Ivreatronic “ballot”, but above all marches, demonstrations for Palestine, for the Leoncavallo social center, for Askatasuna. I read his posts on what is happening in Gaza, on Trump, on Italian politics, always very heartfelt, to the point, never rhetorical. I also bought the compilation on Bandcamp We Will Stay Here. Music for Palestine created by Andrea Pomini of the Love Boat – whose proceeds went to MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians) – with one of his pieces, and listened to his Burn everything in which he sings “A bullet to Bibi's head / And one to all of Bibi's friends / No, don't watch what you say / Yes, you can do anything just like Bibi”.
Maybe this is why I expected that the new album would be a sort of combat electro full of anger and ardor… And instead Cosmo with The source (out Friday 17 April), surprised me: a record full of warmth, bright, with echoes of Battisti di Latin soul and Balearic electronics. Yet, as he tells me in this chat, very political.
You made a record full of light and peace, very in contrast with the shitty times we live in…
I asked myself that too in retrospect. In reality there was a precise artistic logic: with Alessio Natalizia (producer and his partner in crime from On the wings of the white horseed) we wanted to delve deeper into a direction that we had already opened on the previous album, that of a certain Italian song, and push it further. We also had in mind to include various influences: a bit of black music, something urban, Auto-Tune and also a certain vibe balearic. And in the end it came out like this. I asked myself: damn, am I making a record like this right now? Also because Alessio and I are very busy with what is happening in the world – Gaza, the new imperialism – we often talk about it in the studio. But evidently we needed a balm for the soul. For me the source is precisely this: a place from which to draw something positive, without being escapists, but to regenerate.
The idea of source as a return to the origins in the texts looks to childhood, and even goes as far as the embryonic state, the placenta…
Yes, the source is both origin and purity. Something good, intrinsically good, even when it comes from pain. It's a theme that I realized I put into the lyrics: turning pain into something. Don't stay in the complaint, but face it, know it, welcome it and then rise. Even simply looking at the suffering of the world and saying: ok, let's start from here to do something good.
And in fact it's not an angry record: where did you put that anger that I read in your posts on Instagram?
It came out elsewhere, in other pieces like Burn everything. It wasn't inside this record, which has its own internal logic. Here I wanted to do something that regenerates you, because we are literally broken.
Are you telling me it's a political record anyway?
For me everything is a battleground. History is a field of constant struggle: we have won rights and we must continue to defend them. It's not that we will necessarily win, but they won't win either. This thing gives me strength.
Today, however, the streets for Palestine have emptied, as if we had forgotten about it.
It's a strange time. We had an autumn with incredible energy, then suddenly everything normalized. What is missing is a political representation of these energies. But the practices are there: what happened in Italy for Palestine, the mobilizations, demonstrated that an alternative exists. When the bar is raised, as happened with the referendum, something happens.
No The source the idea of TAZs returns, of temporarily autonomous zones, those places, physical or mental, where one can live with an awareness different from the rest of society.
Yes, it's a bit of the album's landing. You start from pain and arrive at a kind of final flowering, at moments of bliss. Enchantment it is precisely this: rediscovering beauty even within torment. And then Come and see was born from a very strong image, that of the monk who sets himself on fire in Saigon: a gesture of total sacrifice that made me think that pain can become a struggle, can transform into something enormous.
A sacrifice that today we struggle to even imagine…
Yes, we live in a kind of late-capitalist spell, built on the well-being of a few at the expense of others. Political commitment has weakened and we find it difficult to think of sacrificing anything. The album, underneath, also talks about this.
You participated in demonstrations in defense of occupied spaces such as Leoncavallo and Askatausana, defined by the government as “dens of dangerous extremists”. Do you feel like a dangerous extremist?
Let's say I'm comfortable with radical ideas. But it is a research, not a rigid position. When you fight you don't know where you'll end up: it's a process, step by step.
The fact that the first piece of the album, Go back to the sourceeverything sung with Auto-Tune seemed almost like a provocation to me, the idea of digitally manipulated purity…
It is a contemporary language. I like using it because it takes me out of my comfort zone and allows me to do things that I wouldn't be able to do with my normal voice, and I don't have any prejudices.
Compared to your first albums, closer to the club dimension, this one seems less linked to the body, to dancing. Is that so?
In reality the body is still there, even more so in terms of sound, with nice powerful bass. But there isn't that strong agitation: it's more of a swaying, a caress. It is a more spiritual dimension, perhaps also conditioned by the fact that I have become very close to meditation.
Does the idea of holding concerts in the morning also go in this direction? I hope they have nothing to do with this trend of soft clubbing where you go dancing with cappuccino and croissants, because I find it pathetic, but knowing you a little I already know that they won't be like that, right?
Of course, I hate them too. At the beginning my idea was much more extreme, then for practical organizational reasons I came to a compromise. The idea was to do concerts at 8 in the morning during the week, when people are working, three hours of live shows and then party until the afternoon. Colonizing work time with celebration, a total reversal. Work now invades everything, they write you emails even at night, so why not do the opposite? “Dionysizing” the day. Don't make the music more dignified, but take it everywhere, even if you go out of tune in the morning, why not? I will do the opposite of soft clubbing: hard clubbing, music always, everywhere.
There are no featurings on the album. It makes me think that in your TAZ there is no room for pop collaborations, that if they offered you a piece with Pausini or Cremonini you would say no: is that right?
No, it depends on the artistic result. Even with Pausini, if it makes sense, I would do it. But an artist I would gladly work with is Madame. I hope one day to be able to meet her.
For a friend it is a very tender song, far from the machismo prevalent in pop.
Yes, it's a personal twist. I understood how important emotional closeness is to me, even in female friendships.
And with my wife we are working to truly become best friends: tell each other everything, without judging each other. Then I'm becoming interested in all the theories of polyamory, I want to understand: in the world of polyamory there is an enormous creative possibility, because there is no standard polyamorous relationship. In the end my goal today is simple: to grow old peacefully. But you only get there if you make the right choices first, otherwise you accumulate things that the body then somatizes.
