NINNI ARINI SINGS LUIGI TENCO - ARINI

I believe that only a singer-songwriter can pay homage, in music and voice, to another singer-songwriter.
It's a question of "elective affinities". For this reason I proposed to Ninni Arini to tackle this project together with me. And Ninni immediately answered: "yes". Many things make Ninni Arini and Luigi Tenco similar, starting from their extraordinary personal sensitivity, the almost unique engine of their art, which pushes them to tell life with a capacity for "vision" deeper than the common man. And then the origin from a place by the sea and therefore in some way the belonging to the sea itself, understood as an immense physical space, but also metaphysical, a place of the soul.
When you tackle the reinterpretation of a great song, often well known to a very large audience, it is necessary to clarify your ideas about why you are doing it, to find the best way to do it. In our case the motivation was the search for an authentic homage, which could not be done without going to the source, to the purest and most intimate nature of the songs. So the choice to rely on essential arrangements, totally free from any superstructure linked to the thousand possible "orchestrations", which could in any way obscure the intimate beauty of the songs, seemed to us a conditio sine qua non. And so: guitar and voice; guitar, cello and voice; piano and voice: this is what you will find on this album, in which essential, but wonderful harmonies, interpreted by three musicians of absolute value, such as Paolo Passalacqua on the piano, Michele Pantaleo on the guitar and Enzo Toscano on the cello, accompany the voice, and the heart, of Ninni Arini in the development of the melodies and words of Luigi Tenco.
And there is also an original song by Ninni Arini, "Si parte", which Ninni wanted to dedicate to Luigi.

As per the long tradition of Velut Luna, two other elements characterize this album - like many of our other productions of the last 20 years - and they are the places where we recorded and the recording method. In fact, we decided to shoot in two real, true environments, wonderful for their acoustic and aesthetic beauty. And then we decided to shoot in the form of live-in-studio, that is, live, without overdubs, without any corrective editing cuts, in pure "live". Therefore, enthusiastically accepting even those inevitable, very small, flaws that represent LIFE, including even some innocent ambient noise.
So the majestic and intimate vaults of the great and historic Martinez Winery in Marsala, with its enormous, centuries-old barrels, a treasure chest of the precious and very well-known wine, provided an extraordinary visual and sound backdrop to the pieces performed with guitar and cello. While the beautiful hall of Ninni Arini's house, in Mazara del Vallo, was the space of choice for the pieces accompanied by the piano.