Hub Music Project, in Salerno the Reunion of 24 Grana and Allisha Joy

Hub Music Project, in Salerno the Reunion of 24 Grana and Allisha Joy.

After a three-year absence, Hub Music Project, the innovative musical hub created by Alfredo Siniscalco, Gianluigi Palamone, Toto Valitutti and Giuseppe Riccio, returns to the setting of Largo Barbuti to offer an audience of Salerno residents and beyond quality events, in the name of contamination and contemporaneity, with Italian and international artists.

Two evenings will characterize the 2022 edition, sponsored by the municipal administration of Salerno. It starts on July 27 with the great return of 24 Grana, returning from a long tour that has recorded numerous sold outs and on the 28th a double date with Allysha Joy preceded by Alessandro Rebesani, aka Rbsn, an event created with the support of the Fondazione della Comunità Salernitana chaired by Antonia Autuori.

“After the restrictions imposed by the health emergency – explains Alfredo Siniscalco – we are very happy to be able to return to occupy a historic space, such as largo Barbuti, which symbolically represents the heart of the city and which has long been the setting for various cultural events and initiatives. These two evenings will be a moment of great joy and celebration for music lovers and for those who want to spend a moment different from the usual in the name of quality”.

First appointment on July 27th with the 24 Grana who will present the album “A Raccolta”. The anthology album, released in spring, was published on the occasion of the celebration of 25 years since their first self-titled album release. Printed only in Limited Edition Vinyl format (in addition to its presence on the main streaming platforms), it contains eleven original remastered songs, in which you can read the history of one of the most important bands of the Neapolitan scene of the last twenty years, plus the Title Track “A Raccolta”, the first song recorded by the group after a long break, with the important featuring of Clementino. On stage the historical lineup: Francesco Di Bella (vocals and guitar), Renato Minale (drums), Armando Cotugno (bass and vocals), Peppe Fontanella (guitar), alongside them a fifth element, Gino Giovannelli (keyboards).

“24 Grana are part of us, they have been a fundamental part of our artistic and personal life. After several years of stop, we realized that, in our lives without a band, there was a void that needed to be filled. A human and creative void. – explain the musicians – So, we decided to meet in the rehearsal room, the four original members, for the pure pleasure of playing a gig with old friends. The band's sound immediately came together and we found ourselves writing and arranging a new song. In autumn 2019, we joined our bass player Armando, who lives in London, to record it at Abbey Road Studios.

All this gave us a great energy, and so we decided that the album release had to coincide with a tour in the spring. We want to meet all those who continue to follow us and who have missed us, but also the younger ones who listen to us and who have not had the chance to listen to us live in the past. It seems like the right time for a rally call”.

24 Grana were born in Naples in the mid-90s as a trio composed of Francesco Di Bella, guitar and vocals; Armando Cotugno, bass; Renato Minale, drums, taking their name from a coin from the reign of Ferdinand I of Aragon, a poor coin, to underline both the link with the Neapolitan artistic tradition and the closeness to a culture that gives little value to money. In those years Italy was characterized by a great social and cultural ferment, accompanied by the musical movement that finds its best expression in posse and dub.

With the entry of Giuseppe Fontanella on guitar, the group takes on its definitive lineup. Their sound seeks to unite tribal energy and the dynamism of digital sound in a blend of dub, reggae, rock. Their recording debut was in the compilation “AA.VV. Napoli Sound System” (La canzonetta Record, 1995) with the song “Regina”.

In 1996, the meeting with Claudio de Cristofaro – who will be their manager until December 2009 – marked the beginning of the recording relationship between the group and the music publishing house La Canzonetta Record, inaugurated with the release of their first work, “24 Grana”, an EP containing four songs. This mini CD was soon followed by the album “Loop” in 1997.

At the same time, their live activity is gaining momentum and they are starting to tour both in our country and in France and Spain – where they represent Italy at the Festa della Musica – Slovenia, Switzerland.

After only one year the group decided to record a live album, “Live” in 1998, which documents a single concert at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples, capturing all their energy. During this period they were constantly on tour, but in 1999 they had the opportunity to record, on the island of Procida, a new album, “Metaversus”.

After creating a video installation, Welcome-X, together with the artists Bianco-Valente, 24 Grana wrote the music for the ballet “Roc”, performed at the Teatro Mercadante. In 2001, “K album” was released, followed in 2002 by a new live album, “Overground live”. After participating in Tora! Tora!, and the inclusion of “Stai mai ccà” in the soundtrack of the film “Fame chimica”, the band released “Underpop” in 2003, an album in which the band strengthened the presence of the Italian language in the lyrics, which until then had been mainly in Neapolitan dialect. In 2004, the band went on tour in Japan, where they played at the “Italian Urban Festival” in Tokyo. In October 2005, GE-2001 was released, a compilation published as an attachment to the newspaper Il manifesto to raise funds for the trials following the G8 events in Genoa.

Various artists will participate in the initiative, including 24 Grana with a song about a political prisoner, “Kanzone doce”. In 2006, La Canzonetta Records published the second edition of the compilation that saw the debut of 24 Grana: “Napoli Sound System vol. 2” in which they participated with a revisitation of the song “Passover” by Joy Division. In 2007, the band temporarily moved to Rome to work on a new album, “Ghostwriters”, released on January 31, 2008, produced by Daniele Sinigallia and featuring Filippo Gatti, Riccardo Sinigallia and Marina Rei.

In May 2008, the compilation “26 canzoni per Peppino Impastato” published by il manifesto cd and edited by OctopusRecords saw them participate with the song in Sicilian language “Stancu Sugnu”. In the compilation, twenty-six Italian artists confront themselves with the political and human experience of the journalist killed by the mafia on the night between 8 and 9 May 1978 and of his companions in life and struggle.

In the 2008 edition of the MEI – Meeting of Independent Labels they won the PIMI award for best group and the award for indie rock revelation for the album “Ghostwriters”.

Between 2010 and 2011, bassist Armando Cotugno left the band and was replaced by Alessandro Innaro, from the highly regarded EPO. 24 Grana began working on a new album with Steve Albini (producer of Nirvana, Pixies and PJ Harvey) in his Electrical Audio studios in Chicago. This is how “La stessa barca” was born, an album that was released on January 18, 2011.

In November 2013, the group decided to take a long break, during which Francesco Di Bella dedicated himself to his solo career. In October 2019, the four original members of the band reunited to record a new single, at Abbey Road Studios in London. What came out was the title track of “A raccolta”, a celebratory album with eleven songs already released + a new song never released on record before, to be released on March 25, 2022. The concert will be preceded by a DJ set by Toto Valitutti.

On July 28th, it will be the turn of Allysha Joy. Halfway between poetry and showmanship, Allysha Joy's powerful lyricism, her unique musicality and her crystalline voice have enchanted audiences all over the world. A founding member of the Melbourne soul-jazz scene, she is known both for her militancy in the acclaimed collective 30/70, and for her brilliant solo career.

Her latest work “Light it Again”, produced by two-time Grammy Award nominee Clever Austin, with the collaboration of the biggest names in the Australian soul jazz scene, defines a new sound for the young artist, transmitting her raw expressiveness, through the soundscapes of Clever Austin. Allysha also has strong roots in the European continent, boasting collaborations and live performances with the likes of Sampa The Great, Ezra Collective and Bradley Zero.

Her debut album, “Arcadie-Raw” won the award for best soul album at the Australian Music Awards, and was nominated for a Grammy Award. Allysha’s lyrics contain a perfect mix of love, strength, desire, anger and hope. Her live performances are of a unique power, her clear and scratchy voice, combined with the sound of her formidable Fender Rhodes, transports us to a world where jazz, hip hop and soul meet with magical and disruptive effects.

The event is supported by the Fondazione della Comunità Salernitana, which has always been attentive to initiatives that contribute to the cultural and social growth of the city, and part of the proceeds will be donated to charity. It will be preceded by a performance by RBSN. Born in Rome in 1996, he grew up with traditional folk. The concept of music as a language brings him closer to jazz and soul, which later became the object of study and the foundation of a very personal salvation path.

His academic experiences at Berklee College of Music (Boston) in 2015 and then at Leeds College of Music put him in contact with realities such as TATE Modern, the Tight Lines label and the Sofar London format, which allowed him to immerse himself in today's thriving English nu jazz scene. Back in Italy he opened for artists such as Kiefer, Anna Calvi, The Blaze (Rock in Roma) and concluded the production of an EP "Soul Searching" curated by Luca Gaudenzi (PyramidProduzioni) with the participation of Roberto Angelini. He performed for important festivals such as Spring Attitude and won FacceNuove (Italia Music Lab SIAE) and the contest "Avanti il ​​Prossimo" by YpsigRock (Castelbuono) in collaboration with Nuovo Imaie.

In addition to performances such as the one as a speaker at TEDx focusing on the theme of the relationship between man and nature, between 2019 and the beginning of 2021 he performed several times in Europe between London and Berlin and began a live and studio collaboration with the Australian singer James Chatburn (collaborator of Jordan Rakei among others) which led to the release in December 2021 of “0 RH +”.

“I wrote the initial version of this song in the summer of 2018 – declares Rbsn- in my head I had imagined it as sung by a group of voices, similar to an archaic and ancestral choir. Then I found myself in the studio with James in Berlin and since I was in a stalemate with this piece I thought of sharing doubts and feelings with James. What he did with the song was incredible, he transformed and enriched it in a completely natural way. It was almost magical to work with him, because I had the feeling that there was a sort of invisible spark that lit a fire, and from one moment to the next gave life to what is now 0RH+.

It represents a new beginning after two difficult years, both for me and for James but also for all the musicians given the complicated period that music has gone through due to the pandemic. -continues Rbsn- For us it is a song and a dance with our tongues hanging out, around an intimate and mystical fire at the same time, at the end of a very intense day of work".

In the Italian scene he has performed several times alongside artists such as Davide Shorty, Ainè and Dario Jacque. Thanks to the experience of the first EP “Soul Searching”, the project has managed to involve artists from various parts of Europe – such as Naima Adams, Nadeem Din-Gabisi, as well as James Chatburn himself – enriching itself with transversal artistic expressions.

Such heterogeneous musical experimentations make Rbsn a link between Roman subcultures and those of the rest of Europe, therefore between the Italian and international psych/soul scenes.

Entrance to the concerts is allowed starting from 21 pm, while the start is scheduled for 22 pm. Tickets can be purchased from Disclan (via Roma 32, Salerno) or through the circuit www.postoriservato.it. Partners: Fondazione della Comunità Salernitana, Bottega San Lazzaro. Sponsors: Cicirinella, AMG, AP, Arredamenti Sud, Mario Parrilli, Banca Campania Centro, Plaium Montis, IASA, feminine, Drogheria. Info: 3485680083. Mail: info@hubmusicproject.it.