2 CD ‘Il Viaggio’ is an offering, a quest for musical, physical, and spiritual renewal, born from an emotional memory awakened. Joining the concrete and ambient, it drifts from the natural sounds of a new day towards a dreamed world. Taking to the road to reinvent oneself is the common thread running through this album, which is organized as a sonic journey in two parts, Lay Your Ear To The Rail (Disc 1) and The Chaos Azure (Disc 2). Specs: 2CD housed in a 6-panel digisleeve with 16-page booklet. When the multidisciplinary arts festival Europalia invited Melanie De Biasio to participate in its 2021 festival on the theme of Trains & Tracks, the Belgian musician was inspired to return to her roots, to retrace the route of immigration from Italy to Belgium taken by her father’s parents. With lightweight recording equipment and an old camera, she settled alone in the small mountain village of Lettomanoppello, in Abruzzo, Italy. This became the starting point Il Viaggio. Her stay lasted a month, during which she collected testimonies, in particular from Ciccopeppe. He was a man exiled to Belgium, before returning to his native Italy. His story forms the preamble to Lay Your Ear To The Rail. Melanie writes, “In his voice, I perceived an echo of the whole of humanity.” She walked throughout the area, recording what she calls “textures” – the wind, the water of springs and streams, birdsong, barking, church bells. In these moments, the acoustician takes the place of the musician to capture natural sounds, untamed vibrations, freeing herself from language, stories, and myths, to fully welcome the uninterpreted world. From Lettomanoppello, Melanie journeyed in the Dolomites where her family originated and where she spent summers as a child. There she found her grandmother’s house and recorded Nonnarina, a tender song of remembrance composed in her honor and sung in her native language of Italian. Like molting, the moment when one leaves one’s old skin to let the new one emerge, Melanie returns to an essential quality. Accompanied by a simple guitar, she expresses this desire in Mi Ricordo Di Te, also sung in Italian. As a spectral music of exile and wandering, Lay Your Ear To The Rail patiently leads the listener towards a return to wonder. Il Vento, Now Is Narrow and San Liberatore satisfy the requirement the musician had imposed on herself, that this journey be made with the eyes of a child. “A child does not think, she dreams. A child’s imagination, detached from adult preoccupations, has no prescribed expectations.” Much like a child’s process of discovery, this journey was not only introspective but also collaborative at its heart: All English lyrics are the result of a continuing collaboration with Gil Helmick, poet and activist living in Maine, in the United States. With Gil’s poetry as a starting point, the two create an improvisation with words, and a synergy of images and meaning is born. The evocative lyrics of We Never Kneel to Pray and its variation The Chaos Azure speak to a luminous rebellion, acceptance, and ultimately, love. On her return to Belgium, Melanie worked closely with Pascal Paulus, multi-instrumentalist who contributed to each of her past albums. With the raw recorded material from Italy, they created the musical foundation for each of the pieces on this album. The ethereal sound of I’m Looking For, like sfumato in painting, is soft and blurred as if unfolding the journey of a dream. In Chiesa, Melanie’s flute takes advantage of the natural echo of a church, creating a spatial wholeness, while the beat evokes footsteps. Continuing her journey in the Catskill Mountains north of New York, she’s meeting with musician and producer David Baron and cellist Rubin Kodheli gave rise to the collective improvisations that accompany We Never Kneel to Pray and The Chaos Azure. And finally, returning to Charleroi, the eponymous Alba is recorded with Pascal Paulus, bringing the work full circle and arriving at a still and restful resolution. Celebrating the dawn, Melanie leaves the train tracks, departs from the collective and family narrative and asserts her presence in the world. In Il Viaggio, we again discover her chant’s originality: her unique phrasing; her voice of sensuality without excess; and above all, her ability to leave behind frenzy and noise, creating a world of abundant time and space. She offers a moment bathed in a fulfilling quietude – and invites us to join her. Tracklisting: 1 – Lay Your Ear To The Rail 2 – Nonnarina 3 – Il Vento 4 – We Never Kneel To Pray 5 – Im Looking For 6 – Mi Ricordo Di Te 7 – Chiesa 8 – Now Is Narrow 9 – San Liberatore 10 – The Chaos Azure 11 – Alba
