Manuel Agnelli: “A cultural reconstruction of music is needed”

“For years I skipped some traces because I didn’t like how my voice played.” Manuel Agnelli thus presented the reprint of “ballads for small hyenas”, which comes out on June 6 in a version remastered by Giovanni Versari, for Universal.
The reprint was presented today by Germi, the Milanese local of Agnelli – where “fresh meat” also takes place, its review of young rock bands that has now become a fixed appointment, and which has been exported to the Milan Film Fest in these days.

“Fresh meat” and Italian music

During the presentation Agnelli reiterated his judgment on the current scene, which led to this review, what he had told us, talking about “fresh meat” a few weeks ago, or the need for an operation of cultural reconstruction of the musical environment: “Italian music is becoming a shit”. In the name of the numbers, tremendous things were done. But this is a generation that also refuses these logic. What we are doing is trying to help what will be the next scene, the next wave, and that will take the place of the current one “.
An agreement was announced at the presentation with Woodworm: “We live in a musical industry that goes in the direction of performer, a dimension that I find suffocating, but we want to show that there are different possibilities. We will give these artists a record path, but with their times”- said Marco Gallorini, founding partner of the label and management companies.

X Factor

Agnelli also took the opportunity to talk about his exit from X Factor: the talent confirmed Giorgia to conduct and the other three judges, Achille Lauro, Jake La Furia and Paola Iezzi, to whom Francesco Gabbani was added: “The contract was not over, I gave up even if they had offered me a great figure. It was a life choice: I did well to do it, but I worked too much in these years At the theatrical tour for ‘Lazarus’ and the Afterhours tour. To what I want to do, even if they are infinitely smaller.

The remastering of the album

Returning to “Piccola Iene”, the album was co -produced by Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs – who also cared for the English version that came out a few months later – and mixed and burned by John Paris: “It is not a simple restyling operation, but a real act of creative reinterpretation, the result of a work of rediscovery and sound reinvention that goes beyond the simple restoration operation. Sound, “says Versari today. “With the intention of giving the disc a new depth, a sound three -dimensionality capable of returning all the emotional urgency and the rock attitude that the disc had. Access to some separate traces of the time has allowed to work with greater sensitivity on detail, renewing the spatiality of the sound and enhancing both the most intimate and crepuscular nuances as the more abrasive and raw explosions”. Each format includes a celebratory poster with the four original covers, taken by Guido Harari with the artwork signed by Thomas Berloffa.

Of “small hyenas”, Agnelli told us a few weeks ago: “It is a very focus disc, and we have to thank Greg Dulli, who produced it. He gave consistency to the pieces, built a unitary sound from start to finish. The After have always been eclectic, a little for the variety of musicians, a little for my taste. But” ballads “and” what is not there “are our most compact records.
Then, it is always the public who decides what is worth. And the pieces of “ballads”, perhaps even more than “what is not there”, have become the spine of our lives. “The white widow”, “ballad for my little hyena”, “The thin white line” entered the imagination of our audience.
“What is not there” is a record that saved my life at a time when I had lost any reference. But from a live point of view, “ballads” has more weight. I can’t do a race. But yes, the audience eventually chooses “ballad for my little hyena”.

The dates of the Afterhours tour

26.06 – Bologna – Sequoie Music Park
28.06 – Florence – Amphitheater of the Cascine Ernesto de Pascale
02.07 – Genoa – Balena Festival – Porto Antico
03.07 – Turin – Flowers Festival
05.07 – Rome – Rome Summer Fest – Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone – Cavea
06.07 – Rome – Rome Summer Fest – Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone – Cavea
08.07 – Milan – Carroponte
09.07 – Padua – Sherwood Festival
15.07 – Brescia – Brescia Summer Music – Arena Campo Marte
19.07 – Pordenone – Pordenone Blues & C. Festival
23.07 – Naples – Noisy Naples Fest – Arena Flegrea
25.07 – Servigliano (FM) – Nosound Fest – Peace Park
26.07 – Bellaria Igea Marina (RN) – Beky Bay
01.08 – Cagliari – TBA
03.08 – Assisi (PG) – Rocca Maggiore
08.08 – Locorotondo (BA) – Locus Festival
13.08 – Zafferana Etnea (CT) – Amphitheater Falcone and Borsellino