Who is (who am) the magician of ice cream?
If you are looking for “The magician of ice cream” on the internet you have two possible results: a bar in via Padova in Milan – now closed, Sigh – and a band made up of four eclectic musicians. And one does not exclude the other, on the contrary. It is precisely from that bar that the group takes inspiration for your name. Thus was born, during the pandemic, the magician of ice cream, which from the studio in via Padova tells us the exit of “Who is Nicola Felpieri?”, The debut album to which Giovanni Donada, Ferruccio Perrone, Pietro Gregori and Alessandro Paolone arrived after a path in continuous acceleration.
The story of the band
“It all started during the second phase of the pandemic – says Pietro – when we found ourselves to play together and make people dance”. From there a series of concerts on Milan in many different situations, until the arrival of Marquis, a producer who gave a structure to the project. In 2023 the exit of the first single, “ginger”, followed by “Elisir” and “Stracciatella”, which anticipate the publication of the first EP “cursed that night”. 2024 is the year of the individual “Pandora”, “GranTurismo” and “Tic Tac”, the latter in collaboration with the French artist Mélanie Chedeville, who anticipate their debut album to be released on March 14 for number one discs.
“We met thanks to the music, two of us had even founded a band in middle schools, others started playing together with high school, until we all landed at the study of the sand, where the project was born on stage and live, but also in the studio, involves three other musicians: Martina Campi (flute and trombone), Alessio Dal Checco (saxophone) and Elia Pozzi (percussionist). With our four personalities we managed to mix our music background to create a meeting point of all “.
“Who is Nicola Fecpieri?”
Also in the first album, which differs from the first EP because it has foreseen several moments of writing, Jam Session, arrangement and recording to the superstudio, where you can breathe the bucolic and relaxed mood of the Salento. And which is enriched thanks to the collaborations with Venerus (“counter -time”), the antonacci festivals (“on tiptoe”) and Mélanie Chedeville (“Tic Tac”).
“For Mélanie we wanted a song for his voice, in a rarefied but imposing atmosphere with a Parisian breath. The Antonacci holidays come from Paris, a place that we like very much as an imaginary. We met them during one of their concerts and the next day we made a collaboration that makes us very happy. With Venerus we share the mink of music. He is a character who lives the live in a way that reflects us a lot, we invited him to listen to the album in the studio and we proposed to add his intervention “.
In these ten tracks, the band affirms its Funk-Jazz sound by mixing it with influences of music for Italian cinema of the 60s and 70s. And a couple of weeks from the Oscar night we want to know if today’s music of cinema would use in their songs. “The methods have changed but the composition remains at the center” Alessandro replies, “there is a lot of music that refers to tradition, but also a lot of experimentation – echoes Giovanni – the combination of music and image fascinates us a lot”.
Covers like works
And, speaking of this, the covers of their songs are real works of art, the latest made by the Fon Fon Studio. “We like to give a figurative image of what we want to express. Our music is instrumental and it is nice to communicate a message through an aesthetic imagination with which those who listen can imagine anything “. In all this, words play an almost marginal role. “They are clues for a script on which the listener builds his own film – says Ferruccio – using the songs as the chapters of a film. If you ask each of us what a song means you will have four different versions “. “Our texts are synthetic but evocative” – adds Giovanni.
The unaware protagonist of this story, which is built song after song, is Nicola “Il Fecpieri”, an enigmatic character who arouses curiosity and forces to activate the imagination to build his own version of the facts. The advice to listen to the record, in fact, is to take 40 minutes of listening in peace in order to give free rein to their imagination. And then, of course, listen to it live on the tour – organized by All Things Live – which will start on March 21 in Perugia and then continue on the 22nd in Prato, on 28 in Pordenone, on April 2 in Rome, 3 in Rende, 4 in Naples, 5 in Conversano, 11 in Bologna, on 17 in Turin, on 18 in Brescia to end in beauty in Milan, on May 24, at the Mi Ami Festival.
“We were born as a live band and continue to love this part of us. We like to take tours viscerally, we can’t wait to get back in motion. ”
