Antonella Ruggiero: “Today we are walking in a landfill of words”

“The objective was to free ourselves from the constraints of meanings, today we are inundated with words, some logical, others out of this world. People feel compelled to say everything. We are walking in a landfill of words. We felt the need not to make everything understood immediately, but to allow the listener to construct their own text, to imagine, to dream., to do what he wants without being trapped in words.” This is how Antonella Ruggiero presents “Altrevie”, the title of the new album created together with the producer and life partner Roberto Colombothe first together after the parenthesis of “Genetic Tomato” in 2008. The basic idea was to recreate a new language to create a new musical proposal. The sound research of the two artists focused on the digital manipulation of Ruggiero's voice.

Together they poured over, decomposed and recomposed the vocal tracks of the the singer-songwriter's first solo work, “Libera”, published in 1996 and recorded between India and Italy, a mix of Western and Eastern musical culture, accompanying Antonella's new song with original harmonizations and arrangements by Roberto Colombo. The result led to twelve pieces of previously unreleased melodies with an extremely suggestive and mystical language. “I inserted the reverberations of the voice, I actually poured fragments of voice over the songs with particular melodic lines – says Colombo – the title arrived because the words of the piece were reversed 'The song of love' 'altrevie' was the only one that still made sense and we liked the meaning included in our intentions, namely that of finding other paths. In general it is a project free from any type of pressure, from the market, and it stimulated us. For Antonella, on a vocal level, it was like hearing another self, with curiosity, with different nuances.”

Musically, “Altrevie” gives the listener a true, evocative journey. But it's not over: the graphic work of the project is the result of a meeting of interests between Ruggiero and the Libri Finti Clandestini collective, specialized in art publishing and paper converting, united by the love for vintage books and reuse. Exploring 110 antique titles from the artist's personal collection, the collective composed a collage of images that is the visual world of “Altrevie”. “Working on this album was exciting – recalls Ruggiero – I didn't sing anything new, it was all filmed and manipulated. The work elicits images, it could be the soundtrack to a contemporary dance show, a day of skateboarding or an athlete's performanceit's music that doesn't have certain references, which is why we find it interesting, because it opens up emotional channels.”

Many have wondered why Ruggiero has not published unpublished works. “One day they will certainly arrive, but this was not the time – he underlines – I have always believed, in my career, in doing what I feel, not what the public, or perhaps the industry, suggests. The artist should not pander to anyone, but follow what he has inside.” I Matia Bazar remain a timeless myth, a band that even the new generations, as evidenced by the new remix version of “I Feel You” signed by Bob Sinclar, they rediscover. “Yes, thanks to these remix some songs also reach today's kids, but I believe that Matia Bazar are loved above all by those who lived through certain years because the songs have the power to photograph a time – concludes Ruggiero – I carry with me in particular the memories of records such as 'Tango' from 1983 and 'Aristocratica' from 1984, produced by Robertoin which there was electronics that no one else was making in Italy”.