Bassolino: Citta' Futura LP

At the intersection where nostalgic cinematography meets a fresh sonic take on a cultural phenomena, Neapolitan native, Bassolino reimagines the soundtrack to iconic Gomorraesque films characterising 70s Italian pop culture. ‘Città Futura’ is the debut album by Bassolino, a maestro of the bustling music scene in Naples, and is released on digital and 12” LP formats via two seminal labels, Berlin-based Jakarta Records and Neapolitan Periodica Records, on March 1st 2024. This body of work is the sole vision of composer and producer Bassolino, co-written with multi-instrumentalist Paolo Petrella and features the pulsating heartbeat of central figures in a cult music scene garnering worldwide interest from drummer Andrea De Fazio (Nu Genea, Parbleu) to alt R&B singer LNDFK (Bastard Jazz) and finessed by mixer/producer Raffaele Arcella aka Whodamanny (Periodica Records). Recorded in 2022 at La deriva Studio, Naples, the inspiration for the album was borne from a pandemic-induced coma back in 2020. With the world’s bleakness glaringly apparent, Bassolino tapped into the limitless power of his imagination to revel in forgotten stories of unsung heroes in Italian cinema. A passion for 1970s gangster movies coupled with his musical deftness developed a fascination with the life and work of Pino Mauro, a multi-faceted artist who introduced a new style of film that originated in Naples and eventually became fashionable throughout the country. Mauro’s commanding voice resonated over funk grooves and orchestral breaks, western-sounding drums and euphonies that took their origin from the Neapolitan melodic tradition and through ‘Città Futura’, Bassolino imagines himself as a protagonist in these enthralling storylines, in to the dangerous plot-twists, creating a modern day soundtrack utilising this analogous formula. On creating the album Bassolino shares: “The operation was not simply to reproduce a sound but to try in a way to actualise and contextualise it. Paolo Petrella, was fundamental at that moment: we spent days locked in the studio looking for melodies, structures, possibilities. Ours is a ‘Southern’ sound rather than ‘Mediterranean.’" He continues, “The record in fact has a strong idea related to the Collective. Each musician has his own expressive and timbral space, trying to break certain genre stereotypes that would have made the music sound definable as "revival". The challenge is all there.”