Casino Royale: “This pre -apepocalyptic album opens a new phase”

In the chronicler career it often happens to make interviews in “deputies” places but sometimes it also happens to chat with artists in different places … such as, for example, a newsstand (which then thinking about it for the press would not even be so foreign as a place). With Alioscia Frontman and historical author of the Royale casino The appointment is there, to its newsstand, in a typical street of the historic Lambrate neighborhood. During the chat “Ali” it will have stopped a thousand times to greet customers, friends, inhabitants of the neighborhood, in an atmosphere that does not even seem to be that of the “cold” and “frantic” Milan, a family environment where relationships still have their value.

We met with Alioscia because there is to talk about “Smoke“, The new album accredited to the Milanese training, the tenth studio work since 1988. An enviable artistic longevity even if passed through more or less fortunate vicissitudes.

“Smoke” is an album of 15 tracks but to be handled according to the instructions that Alioscia tells us during the chat and arrives almost four years from the previous one “Polaris“. The new album reports musical hands back in time. Among the” smoke “credits those of Marta del Great (voice and author), Clap! Clap!, As a producer, the very young rapper Alda And Alina B., The little daughter of Alioscia who closes the album, with an ideal look to the future.

How does this new job arrive?
First of all, it comes after a soon life of life, soon but with the awareness of how the world goes and that you just have to thank you for this part of the world or to have gone to take blood tests and have seen that everything is fine. Because then when you arrive at this age you see that you are no longer immortal.
It is a tough period, years messed up working in other fields, I speak of the bar (the local Elita on the Navigli), an activity that began to take me away a lot of time, energy, attention, because I had to be more present. I have not straightened a difficult situation and now I find myself managing a very delicate matter, which leads you not to sleep well, to have tension in the family. And then now there is the project of the investigation.
So this album is the result of a work in cut of time, in about three years, half an hour as soon as I could. In the end, however, when you have no expectations and do everything in a disinterested way, without making you influence from what happens, from the market, from what it goes and what is wrong, things work.
It is a record where there are hopes, my hopes, those to which we cling to. Human capital is there, but we are the first to not want to find a point of contact and this is dramatic.

So is it a disc of hope?
It is a pre-apocalyptic disc, but it is a disk of hope. It is certainly pre-apocalyptic because objectively in this era there are all the credentials for the apocalypse, that is, the technology that becomes a nightmare and its uses related to control and create induced needs. Technology to understand how to bomb, but which can also be used to understand what can accelerate cancer and fight it. But we are always there: as long as the abuse and profit are the creed of this humanity I wonder where we want to go.

And what does the title of the album represent with this?
It is related to the desire to create continuous dualisms and contrasts between similar in order to fragment, divide and command a world in which there is a system that takes or lined up on one side or opposing, polarized. You are pro vax or you are no vax, you are pro Ukraine or six pro Putin. In reality you can make analyzes that are not necessarily linear. I want to learn more, I want a comparison, I want to know more, it’s not all that clear. And the smoke that is created prevents you from understanding, of knowing who the real enemy is and who smiles us.

Musically speaking what is the link with the old mess?
It is a very strong bond because “smoke” is super reggae, it is super dub, it is super clashara, in my opinion in certain things it is very “sandinist”, it is very uk, it is very dub, it is very royalized, it is very casino royal uk, while instead “Polaris” was more mittele European, it was more new wave. “Smoking” is full of friends.

Instead, what is the “intellectual” bond, textual?
I believe that already “Dynamite“(1993), when we started writing in Italian, there were pieces on reflection, immigration, racism, but they were already there, I remember, in”White Sun“As in”Jungle Jubilee“(From the previous album of 1990). Before they were” visions “a little more introspective or a little more photography than the reality, but in some ways” prophetic “, I think of” ready for the worst “… in the end it went exactly like that, and I’m not happy to have been a premonitory. But when I write I have to look forward.

What are the discs of the royale casino to whom you are most fond of?
Surely “CRX“(1997), because it is the most coherent album since I crush play to when it ends, it’s a great job. Then there is”And closer and closer“(1995), but he had songs that had nothing to do with the rest of the album. I think that from” Dynamite “there is a continuity. On the other hand we then talk about albums less of success as”Real“Or“Me and my shadow“, A period in which as a band we saw ourselves a little unfinished, with Scazzi among us, in which everyone pulled on his side. Those were records that would need more gestation time from the point of view of development, of the cantati.

But are the royal casinos now alioscia?
Surely there is finally recognized leadership without having to pretend that there is not. I say this with the highest gratitude for the figures they gave so musically to the Royale casino, but it had become really difficult, absurd ego battles. A absurd is now a much more open project. So yes Casino Royale has a leadership that is mine, as a project leader, so what the disc is called, what the titles are, how we do the graphics, who is the producer we use, what is the imagination, I decide it, but it has always been so. Since this was clear, we did “Forty scenario“(Disco who tells the Pandemia of 2020 editor’s note with other musicians), a crazy project, but with his why, which will remain, in my opinion, a real testimony of that moment. We then made”Polaris“, With his two films, one comes out now, on June 3, at the Milano Film Festival, and closes the experience. All this including a lot of people in the work team, so it is a more open, more collective project that has a leadership, an artistic direction where, however, other people are going up on board and this, in my opinion, is a cool.

How did you choose Clap! Clap! in the role of manufacturer?
He is an artist that I knew even when we had tried to work for the “CRX” remixes. Then I worked with him in Matera, for the Oz project, of which I do the artistic direction, where we took library of traditional sounds and instruments and we gave them to the hands of producers of contemporary and electronic music. But with him I wanted to work on a disc, in the studio, where I had seen that it was brilliant, a crazy potential. So I sent him half an hour of music of the new album, but I was not sure he would accept and instead he was enthusiastic and volcanic, almost hypercinetic. So we started putting the pieces together.

You present this album as an overview. Is that so?
It is a record that started with the first piece, from which the second was born, then the third and so on; It was really built like this. It is a record to listen to in its completeness, not in a separate way song for song as it is done with modern production.

So the order of the track list is the same as the writing?
Exactly. For me it is like a single song, it was like a suite. This choice would have messed everything, also for discography, trivially for reporting on streaming platforms. But the invitation to listen is this, to consider it as a single song.

Marta del Grande continues with you?
Well, Marta does not continue with us, because she has a career full of things to do. Let’s say it is a relative who comes to visit us and always gives a special contribution, even of writing. She wrote the text of the incipit. I wrote “smoke”, I made him listen to him and she in writing took inspiration from the song and our chat. And then he has an inspired voice.

In light of what has been said and what happened to the mess, is this a rebirth?
For royale casinos it is always so, every time it is as if it were the first. This creates nervousness but makes you feel like 19 years old, never ages.

How many phases have you had?
Well, surely the ska phase, then the change with “Jungle Jubilee”. Then the 90s phase, which was followed by that of the project Royalizewith the work on the Royality label, in which we started thinking about Casino Royale as a project beyond music. And then the return … trying to be a band, which was very tiring, because there were already things that did not work. And then the phase that opened with “Polaris”, the rebirth with a rich scenario. Now there is this new album.