Calcutta puts Italy at its feet, with its French touch mixed with progressive rock

2023-10-21 16:00:07
Calcutta, on the island of Elba (Italy), in July 2023. ANGELICA SCHIATTI

In batches, happy few crowded, for a whole weekend, among the shadows and gold of the Villa Medici. They came to see – or rather glimpse – the unexpected return of the little Italo-pop prodigy, Edoardo D’Erme, alias Calcutta. Locked with his musicians in a lounge at the Académie de France in Rome, the Italian played his repertoire without interruption, from 4 p.m. to midnight, two days in a row, on October 14 and 15.

Every half hour, around twenty spectators were invited to spy on him through five openings cut into the walls, forming the letters of his new album, RELAX. Once their slot was up, voyeurs could relax as they pleased, with a cocktail or herbal tea in hand, on the terrace of the venerable institution. The audience? A majority of adolescents and young adults, coming from all ends, social and geographical, of the Peninsula.

It is that with his two previous albums, Mainstream (2015) et Evergreen (2018), Calcutta put the Boot at its feet. By his voice, sometimes harsh, sometimes caressing; his writing, oscillating between smiles and bites; and his image, nonchalantly worked. Suffice to say that the hopes surrounding RELAXpublished on October 20, were large; they will not be disappointed. “I am happy to have modestly participated in this fabulous record, which will mark the history of Italian music”, confides Laurent Brancowitz. The band’s guitarist Phoenix co-wrote the opening track, Coroan Alpine choir that he presents as a tribute to his “Trentine roots” – his father was born in Trentino-Alto Adige.

Read the review (2018): Article reserved for our subscribers Calcutta, the “Indian” of Italian pop

“He’s our best lyricist”

Another eminent representative of the French touch, electronic musician Myd co-produced the album. “I work very slowly. Myd is very agile. He brought color”, praises Calcutta, met in Prati, a district of Rome caught between the antennas of public broadcasting and the altars of the Vatican. Highly appreciated on this side of the Alps, Giorgio Poi also co-directed RELAX. “Edoardo is a tightrope walkerslips the Roman multi-instrumentalist, just returned from an artistic residency in Paris. He’s our best lyricist, but this time he focused on the musicality of the songs. » From start to finish, the keyboards of Neapolitan Gaetano Scognamiglio, co-author of I’ll ride with yousparkle with a thousand lights: “Edoardo took stock of his musical gifts”assures the brain of the Fitness Forever group, nicknamed “il maestro” by his colleagues.

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