Motta: “In moments of loneliness, Thom Yorke becomes a lighthouse”
A free, psychedelic project with a punk attitude, in which the live and recording studio dimensions blend into each other. “Play! Vol. 1”, Motta’s new album, out on October 11th, will be presented with four unique and intimate events scheduled for November: November 7th and 8th at the Hacienda in Rome, November 27th and 28th at the Base in Milan. In addition to these events, you will have the opportunity to attend the show that the singer-songwriter will bring to the stage, together with Cesare Petulicchio, Giorgio Maria Condemi and Roberta Sammarelli, also on November 17th at the Ariosto Theater in Reggio Emilia. The peculiarity of Motta’s artistic experiment (born and produced with Petulicchio and Condemi) is that of bringing live music back to a recording studio and not the other way around: inside the album you can find new arrangements of his pieces and those of his first band , the Criminal Jokers, as well as the previously unreleased “Suona”. To make all this possible, the artist called with him some of the best musicians of the Italian and international alternative scene: Roberta Sammarelli, Cesare Petulicchio, Giorgio Maria Condemi, Kazu Makino, Teho Teardo and Maria Chiara Argirò. The album will be the first release of “Sona Music Records”, Motta’s new record label, which will take care of some particular projects.
Is this operation a move to never stop playing?
The project it’s obviously connected to the live performance (smiles, ed.), I come from a very nice tour that gave me great energy. But these dates in Milan and Rome will be something even different: we will practically take off the stage and play in the middle of the room, with people around us. And this thing here, in short, is another way to further complicate your life. And I really like to complicate it. Playing concerts, of course, is one of the big reasons why I make music, but I always want to make them different. I don’t want to repeat myself.
New versions of songs are also a way to “exorcise” the songs?
Yes, this type of approach allowed me, together with Cesare Petulicchio and Giorgio Maria Condemi, to play a lot with the music. We already had a text, namely that of my original songs, we had to somehow work on verticality, create a new sound, which is very stimulating for a musician. This can be done by choosing specific songs, some are among my favorites because they are the ones I have played with the most, in all these years, in terms of arrangement. A process of synthesis and also of destruction of certainties was triggered, an approach which then led to the writing of the unpublished “Suona”.
Do you want to challenge the listener?
I care. It’s a bit like saying “I’m not sure about those songs, let alone you”. The idea of breaking what we already know intrigues me. Then maybe in 10 years I will say “but what versions did I make… the originals were better”. For now I don’t think so. In fact I think some songs have improved with these new arrangements.
Type?
“Lost Souls”. The new stripped version goes very well with that idea of fragility that is preserved in the text.
To do all this you surrounded yourself with a super band.
The best. Artists capable of defending, together with me, this crazy choice to redo the pieces, to give life to this record which in the end is a mixtape. Cesare Petulicchio and Giorgio Maria Condemi also participated in the construction of the album. Roberta Sammarelli is present because, in addition to being an incredible musician, we remained very close after the experience of having her in the group already this summer. It was truly beautiful. We became friends and the idea of bonding so much with a person of whom I am first and foremost a fan for everything he did with Verdena is not a given.
Is the label you created both for yourself and for other people’s projects?
It’s not a given that I’ll release all my next albums with this label. I will evaluate from time to time. The new reality was born to give space to projects of a certain type and it was right to inaugurate it with a crazy album. I hope that the label can accompany projects that I really like, that have a vision. Yes, others too. I assure you that to do all this you need a lot of energy, carrying forward a record project is not at all simple.
Not Let’s hide, however, behind a finger: you did this operation because you no longer believe in certain record dynamics.
In recent years, at times, I have felt a sense of loneliness, this is true. I’m different from what works today, from what’s in the charts. This is demonstrated by the fact that I included an eight-minute song on this album (“If we continue to run”, ed.). It’s not that I’m crazy, but this project certainly pushed me to want to defend certain diversities. In my career it also happened that I ended up in more pop dynamics with some songs, I did the Sanremo Festival… so I’m certainly not the unblemished knight of the independent world and I don’t even care to be. Today, compared to some time ago, that desire for dizziness that has always attracted me no longer leads me to think “am I doing good or bad?”, I simply want to live it and that’s it.
What was it like working on Criminal Jokers songs again?
Putting my hands back on those songs was cathartic because I was a different person when I wrote them. It was the most beautiful and profound moment of the process, we are talking about songs in which it was me, but it wasn’t me. They seem to belong to another time. You know, one of the beautiful aspects of this record is the great musical breadth it has. Music really has so many free moments that the listener can somehow dive into.
Haven’t you ever had the feeling of pulling too much?
Yes. But that’s what I want to do. Warning: I didn’t make an experimental music record (smiles, ed.), in the end they are always my songs… But I undoubtedly ask the listener for an effort. This kind of operation works if you really believe it: all the choices I’ve made in my life, from relationships to songs, didn’t work when I wasn’t completely convinced. And instead the courageous choices I believed in, regardless of whether they were successful or not, made me feel good. And today I am interested in this.
You had a tour that went very well, but you seem very detached from the idea of achieving results at this moment in your career.
The moment you are truly convinced of something, the rest doesn’t matter. I believe that certain directions and choices need time. In recent years we have seen everything, idols of the moment burn in a very short time. I don’t think I make protest music, I don’t think I’m against the mainstream, I just think that, like me, there are a lot of people who don’t necessarily want to listen to only the top four in the charts.
Is the situation better internationally?
Well, take Fontaines DC: they make their own music and they even manage to get to the top of the charts. They are young, they have fun and they make beautiful songs. They take liberties and they get paid for it. In Italy it almost never happens. When I experience those moments of solitude I was telling you about, I think of them or of Thom Yorke, who has always been a lighthouse for me, an artist to compare myself with and who reminds me to always try to keep the level of everything I do high. When I think I’ve done something incredible, then I discover that Thom Yorke had actually already done it (smiles, ed.). Relating to that world, to what happens abroad is necessary for me.
