Marco Tiraboschi: In a New World

Description

Back in 2020, during the peak of the first lockdown, ‘In a New World’ began to unfold. The foggy future spurred a yearning for rebirth, for a world superior to its former self — a place infused with empathy. It was in this time that I penned ‘Un respiro,’ its tempo echoing the relentless pulse of ventilators cradling COVID patients. This was swiftly chased by ‘Past Change,’ a meditation on evolution and embracing what lies ahead.
The project then crystallized, as I wove together new compositions and breathed new life into earlier works. This creative tide was stemmed by the heart-wrenching loss of Simone Prando, a friend and musician, who I honored with the album’s title track.
The album presents a tapestry of world music and jazz, articulated through guitar, oud, violin, and double bass — a palette of sounds ranging from the delicate to the vibrant, merging disparate ‘world’ dialects into a single, cohesive voice.
With the stalwart talent of my friends Daniele Richiedei and Giulio Corini, we honed our performance over two months and took to the festival circuit. Javier Girotto’s intermittent presence on stage, and his imprint on the album, were invaluable. Yet, the album transcends a mere live gig capture; it’s an entity of its own, shaped by spurts of creativity in the studio that Marc Ribot’s guitar graced — a personal milestone.
Highlights include ’00:21,’ an evocative night-time creation, undoubtedly colored by my reading of Freud’s ‘Totem and Taboo.’ ‘Natus’ charts a transcontinental narrative from Europe to Africa, searching for a novel voice amidst ancient traditions — a metaphor for birth and humanity’s potential for a fresh start.
‘An Empty Garden’ is a place that makes me – as well as all of us – feel good, the locus amoenus of the ancients, an idea of ​​an imaginary, ideal place. Meanwhile, ‘El Suadente’ is an ode to Latin and jazz melodies, laced with an Oriental zest — a place where Arsenio Rodriguez meets Charlie Christian under Dimitrie Cantemir’s watchful eye.
The conception of ‘La Nuit Parisienne,’ born amidst a French tour, dives into the eclectic energy of Paris’s underground music scene. And taking on King Crimson’s ‘Frame by Frame,’ reinterpreting it to showcase its ethnic layers, was a long-held ambition that even Adrian Belew admired.
The track ‘Sher’ combines ‘she’ and ‘her’ to capture the piece’s feminine essence, with a Latin twist.
The creative input from Alessandro “Asso” Stefana and Taketo Gohara has edged this work ever closer to the ‘New World’ of my aspirations. I trust it will resonate with you just as deeply.
Marco Tiraboschi © 2023