“STORIE” is a musical project conceived and written by Massimo Ricciuti, which goes far beyond the discographic meaning because, due to the semantic and semiotic stratification (sense of discourse and signs used), it is capable of broadening its horizons towards different types of consumers. Through a sound that mixes Mediterranean echoes with Balkan and Celtic sounds, it bears witness to a collective story in the form of extremely accessible “Folk-Pop” or “World Music d'autore”. The ten songs that make up the album are as many life stories and can also be seen as ten chapters of a novel. Ricciuti's influence on his profession as a screenwriter and novelist (rather than a journalist) is strong. The choice to open the album with a song with a pop-vintage spirit and sound (Ci Sei) is a message of hope addressed not only to the generation to which the author belongs, but is a caress towards the younger ones who are living in a historical and existential phase of great changes. This phase, the song suggests, must be overcome with courage and the strength of feelings. This song reflects the eternally precarious condition of a generation forced to live in an eternal present. The author suggests the possibility of redemption in an unexpected love encounter. This song was chosen for the album's presentation video and is the theme that runs through the entire album: the awareness of time passing while you are forced to live an eternal night. The songs alternate, and go from danceable rhythms to slow reflective ones, each time declining in a different way the theme that is at the base of the concept album. From sweet sensations to bitter hints. Work as fatigue and as a claim of pride, the work that is not there, and when it is there it is told both from sea and from land. The ten songs that make up the “STORIE” project can all be listened to in company and re-created by the listener who becomes an actor in the consumed product, as the composition of the songs was deliberately created with the aim of actively involving. Choral pieces, pieces for fun (pieces that aim to diverge), but which provoke ten reasons for reflection. The dominant distinctive element of the project is the choice to completely exclude synthesizers and samplers, using “Vintage” analog machines for recording (e.g. Pre-production on a four-track Tascam analog tape deck and finalization on an eight-track Yamaha md). Furthermore, to offer the listener the maximum sound realism, we worked on an absolutely anti-conformist mixture compared to the stereotype of today's productions (symptomatic is the use of instruments such as the battente guitar, banjo, Indian flute, accordion and wind instruments, bansuri, duduk, dvojanka, tin and low whistle, harmonium etc.). The arrangements were curated by Riccardo Marconi (historical collaborator of Carlo D'Angiò) with the help of solid professional musicians such as Ivan Dalia, Cristiano della Monica, Fulvio Di Nocera, Francesco Di Cristofaro, Osvaldo Costabile, Davide Mastropaolo. The listener is the center of the whole “discourse”, and is “The” protagonist of “STORIES”. In a world where everything is virtual, this project stands out because it is sincerely “real”. From the cover to the photographs inside the booklet, from the reproduction of texts and musical scores, everything acts as a metatext underlining the density of the complete story. The project produced and communicated by the independent label Suono Libero Music of Nando Misuraca will be available, in addition to the classic CD and digital format, also on 33 rpm vinyl and distributed by Halidon. This Choice looks to the future. Today, in fact, the recovery of vinyl supports is in strong revival…and “STORIE” fits fully into this direction by presenting itself in a friendly but elegant manner, offering itself as a cultured but popular narration….
Massimo Ricciuti is a journalist (Il Riformista, Avanti, Mondoperaio, L'Unità, Il Mattino, Il Roma), a political commentator, and a television and film scriptwriter (Un Posto al Sole, Vivere Baldini e Simoni and other Rai and Mediaset TV dramas). Graduated in Literature, he specialized in serial screenwriting by attending the European Union's MEDIA Master. Always active in the field of political communication (he was head of the press office of Political Parties, Public Institutions and for years he worked for the Department of Social Policies of the Municipality of Naples), he is currently a member of the Editorial Board of "Liberal Words", the information body of ALDE (European Party of Democrats and Liberals) where he writes and deals with internal and external information also for the European Parliamentary Group. He is the author of two novels.
Article published on 29 October 2018 - 17:16
