The Forest of the Spirit - Charlie Rasse between "The Light" and "Alive"

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“I hope this album can be a companion for those who listen to it, offering comfort, inspiration and the awareness that we are not alone in our emotional experiences. With Alive I want to share my story and touch the hearts of those who listen to my music. " Charlie Risso

Imagine that you have lost it inside a thick forest and that you can no longer find the "direct way", surrounded by the blowing of the wind among the branches that suggests something nefarious and a sense of restlessness that obscures your sight . This present nature, alive, has at the same time an unreliable air, as if all the fauna was not material but imaginative.

Strange appearances are felt among the fronds of the trees, in the cracks of the trunks and even in the subsoil; Shadows of wolves, as projected by a zootropium, turn around your eyes and hover between one fir and the other. Is it a dream? A nightmare maybe? In truth, this "other" reality (probably out of an illustration by Arthur Rackham for the fairy tales of the Grimm) is nothing more than one of the access plans to the musical universe of Charlie Risso, singer -songwriter and musician of Genoese origins with a soul cosmopolitan grown musically between Milan and London.

After the success achieved with its previous albums, "Ruins of Memories" (2019) and "Tornado" (2020), Charlie Risso has shown to know how to constantly change the body (not the spirit) of what is his style (now recognizable in the first shot), furrowing unexplored peaks today in the Italian panorama. His is a unique and lonely universe, in which the sweetness of his voice is to be opposed to the shadows that nest between melancholy sounds with dark colors.

It is a continuous transition from darkness to light (passing even in rims of fire), a journey towards stadiums of inner elevation that crave the mountains of the spirit (from the Scandinavian air) in which, between the fog, it is possible to lose the heavy carcass of matter, of the superfluous. It is through the EP "The Light", published in November 2022 with the artistic production of Federico Dragogna (ministers), that something begins to change and transform itself, manifesting a DreamPop soul that goes well with electronics, redesigning in this way the folk aura of which it is permeated and which still remains its polar star.

The journey beyond the life portrayed in "The Light" heralds what will be the next album: "Alive" (released on April 26, 2024 for the German label T3 Records), a work consisting of 10 folk-soul-blues ballads from Electric sound in which the Lynchian aesthetic of Twin Peaks (which has always characterized the production of Charlie Risso) totally shapes, giving that perfect ethereal sensation in which the darkness of the deep night and the radiant harmony of the new light dialogue; A light that purifies (like a sacred fountain) from the "dark falls in the dark" of which Franco Battiato wrote.

Through "Alive" and his ballads, Charlie Risso leads us to travel a journey into the thin world in which the Fairies dominate that we call time, showing us frightening and exciting images, between a luline lullaby and pop singing lullaby, weaving a thin wire Red that unites these last two works of the Genoese musician, whose access key is his fairy voice that chains and seduces like a siren or (better still) as a nymph with a shamanic charm. Now I can say that the fairies exist and Charlie Risso is proof of this.

The following interview took place before the release of "Alive" in which, among the numerous anecdotes, we managed to access "Intrest", as stated the title of a song contained in the EP "The Light", up To land in the abysses of the creative consciousness of the musician who revealed some codes of his universe, heralding the ground on which his last and wonderful work manifests himself.

You are back from numerous concerts far and wide, certainly the result of the success you have achieved with your last two works: the album "Tornado" and the EP "The Light". At what moment do you think you find you?

Charlie Risso: I feel I am in a phase of Sliding Doors in which things can take an important turn, which I hope will happen, because of the work done on the latest project but also for the writing in English that it certainly helps in a context international. You know very well how fond of foreign musical culture is and how much I would like to work out, which would be ideal ... thus keeping the base in our wonderful country but turning our gaze towards other lands, other worlds.

Speaking of connections outside national borders, I know of an important collaboration with Hugo Race, the guitarist of the group " Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds " ...

Charlie Risso: Exactly, the beautiful thing is that this story was born by pure chance through social media. At first I even believed that it was a joke because he contacted him via Instagram; I find that this "contact" bridge is really beautiful, because the thinking that he was in Australia and I in Genoa makes me imagine a communication network that represents a single great thing projected beyond the territorial barriers.

It was a real surprise to be contacted by him with the invitation to participate in an artistic residence on Lake Massaciùccoli, in a beautiful recording studio that is the PMFA Massaciùccoli; A floating House Boat commanded by Captain Nicola Baronti, producer and owner of the study "La Tana del Bianconiglio" where artists such as Zen Circus - Afterhours - Iosonouncane have also passed. Of course, knowing I had to write for several days with Hugo Race that I did not know and that I esteemed enormously, I had a bit of one of that reverential fear just like when you did not do my homework at school and you have the straw tail because it warns the tension.

I wanted to get prepared for this important meeting, so I developed two songs that are contained in the next album and that I proposed to him at a distance, even before participating in this artistic residence, and when we met he told me that he found them beautiful. So the journey began like this and then continued with the composition of the entire disc.

When is the album output?

Charlie Risso: I hope that it can be released in my favorite months which are October and November, when we approach the cold but still is not totally wrapped in the restlessness that characterizes January. In reality it all depends on the label and at this point I reach a certain recognition of the work done and the potential it brings with it.

I would like if there was an adequate promotion since the album contains really important collaborations: from Roberto Dellera (bassist of the Afterhours) to Her (violinist who boasts important collaborations, including Franco Battiato) who in some tracks combines the sweetness of the His violin with the dark and extraordinary voice of Hugo Race.

Then I want to emphasize the considerable contribution from Robin Manzini who is the guitarist residing in my band, Nicola Baronti who played several tools, Davide Zalasso (Ozerik Tentacol drummer), Rachid Bouchabla (ex Otago bassist) who recorded very first parts of the disc at the Green Fox Studio by Mattia Cuminotto (Meganoids). In short, there are so many beautiful energies that also feed the charge that I put into this album.

Your path has been fortified by long journeys to unknown territories, also through music, which have allowed you to constantly experiment by making your art mature. What does the journey represent for you?

Charlie Risso: the journey has always been one of the sources of joy of inspiration and above all of exchange for me. I feed on photographs, who are like films for me, and it is well known that I love natural elements; In fact, I have a lot of plans, I would like to dedicate myself and that concern the environment, for example I could live in Sweden.

I am always happy when the journey, as in this phase of my life, manages to be functional also to my music; We had recently had two dates and I feel really happy when all this happens because I have the opportunity to share this type of experience with foreign countries and savor what the world outside offers me by seeing the concerts of others , the best, so as to always raise the bar. In my life I was lucky enough to travel a lot, also because before I worked a lot as a decorator and as soon as I could buy a ticket for a plane that would take me far, so I made beautiful trips: from America to Canada, passing through Norway.

Thinking about it I realize that I have always chosen quite trees quite destinations. Being very susceptible, very sensitive, I am afraid of traveling to countries where I could take care of many suffering; It is also true that I have been to Costa Rica and I was very well, but because one account is simplicity and another account is the torment that poverty brings with it. I believe that in the end you can make great trips simply with your own head, as I did numerous times and from which I have drawn inspiration for different songs.

They are forms of relaxation in which you can travel by standing still, also because we humans are really full of resources, for example "The Light" was born from a reading of "Life after death" written by yogi Ramacharaka in which the approach to the theme of press experiences takes place in a relaxed form. I lost my mother as a child, she was fifty -three years old, and for me it was the greatest pain in my life; With her I had not only a mother-daughter but also very friendly relationship because she then loved music extremely. This has greatly conditioned my life choices and my reflections and it is certainly a theme that unites everyone, beyond religion.

Do you think that I grew up in a classic way, I made the school from the nuns, even if with growing I realized that I am a believer but not so much Catholic-Praticant and I do not go much to Mass, but through the reading of this book it is possible Finding an approach that makes life live as what it describes to be: a moment of passage to achieve a dimension that looks a lot like the place where we find ourselves today ... and it is something that makes tears come to the eyes.

So "The Light" represents my passage, also and above all metaphorically, towards a change. It is the realization of the fact that by going on you prefer to eliminate futile things to give yourself to the essential ones and what it really makes happy, for example by attending the people you really look in your eyes.

Your music has a strong fairytale component and gives the feeling of being immersed between light and shadow, just like in a fairy forest. What do you think is the meeting point between the Apollonian visions and the dark atmospheres that meet in your world? Maybe the voice?

Charlie Risso: I would tell you the spirit. I think my music reflects me in character, also because they are light and shadow, which perhaps we are all in reality; I am sunny and I think I have a healthy energy but I also have moments that I hide and they are those in which I block.

I have this inner world of mine since I was a child and that I have turned into writing towards eighteen, using music as a way to throw out thoughts and exorcise them through the sweet and reassuring trait of my voice. I like the idea that there are the darkest foundations and that there is the trait of a male hand in artistic production, which in this case is Federico Dragogna (ministers), which goes very well as the Tao: white and white black.

So I think that the meeting point derives from the character, from these two opposing aspects, and from the union between dark sounds with strong and dark colors and my voice that makes its way into this darkness. All this is present in the EP and I must say that the four songs that make it up are all different from each other but have in common this internal dichotomy that unites them between the shadow, made up of the dark sounds, and the light, as it also shows it The white cover. Then in the next album there will be other meetings between lights and shadows ...

Yours is an extremely evocative voice. In this regard, what role do sounds play in the creation of images in that suspension of time that is music?

Charlie Risso: the sounds are fundamental. I find the mixture very interesting between sounds that can come from an era passed like the Glockenspeil, whose sound makes the fairytale world of the Grimm brothers, and contemporary Synths. In addition, today there are so many "ingredients" available that you simply have to know how to choose the right ones and know how to unite them. Then I am not one who searches for fashion or smart things at all costs, therefore also the timeless plan to refer to is due to a musical freedom that fortunately allows me to give the feeling not to be cataloged at the same time or to a particularly precise historical period.

Towards which destination, inner and artistic, are you projected now?

Charlie Risso: look, it's so instinctive that I can hardly answer this question. However, there is a wonderful aspect that makes me hope: music knows no age, so until I live I don't think there is an end to my musical creation.