19 October 2018

HERSELF is the moniker of Italian multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Gioele Valenti, who’s also making psychedelic waves with his terrific Juju project. Today sees the release of his new magnificent Herself LP entitled RIGEL PLAYGROUND. An intimate and delicate record with profound reflections and gripping reveries about different puzzling aspects of mankind, about the meaning of life, about schizophrenia and karma and with one magical Mercury Rev touch. Music that warms your heart and thoughts that enlighten your soul. Of course, the only person who knows all the details about this glowing work of sonic humanity is the author himself. Gioele Valenti will reveal anecdotes and stories about all the songs, right here, track by track…

Here’s the music…

https://open.spotify.com/album/2lFxjfypIRNJNzXGNs74EI?si=eWOWeHYUTOOR_T3CpXteFA
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Here are the anecdotes & stories…

1. ANOTHER CHRISTIAN
“A song I would call naive. Very strange and intimate. It’s a metaphor. We are permanently driven by our brain. But our mind, is it really our property? I think we live controlled by others, constantly. “They made me run in circle in my brain“, says the song. Christianity and all religions put an alien in ourselves. Schizophrenia is the rule.

2. BARK
“It’s like a lamentation or, if you prefer, a prayer… humans are a particular kind of animal. We can roll ourselves in the mud, but with good roots planted, we can take a leap in the light. This aspect of things is very interesting to me. From Jewish Qabbalah to Buddhist asceticism, the debate between matter and spirit, light and shadow is substantial. The barking of a dog, as the howling of the wolf to the moon, expresses at best an existence
in balance between nostalgia and unknown.”

3. CRAWLING
“Very pop(py). I think about John Lennon, when I hear that song. The light that keeps on shining at the highest level, when you’re in a deep well. It’s about karma rule: “So at last,
all the things you gave turn back”.“

4. IN THE WOOD
“Folk, traditional, with a bit of wave underneath the skin. Phil Oach? Donovan?
I don’t know. Played in a wood.”

5. THE BEAST OF LOVE
When I wrote this song I immediately thought about Mercury Rev and their incredible vox, Jonathan Donahue. A true poet and a magician. So I asked him to collaborate. He liked the song very much. (He. Said. Yes.). For me, it’s a miracle. Mercury Rev it’s the best band ever for me. That song is the reason I’m gonna be touring with them, so you can understand what that song means for me.

6. WITNESS
“It’s the song I wrote for all the victims of the Bataclan tragedy in Paris 2015.”

7. TREATS
“A childhood song. Purity, clarity, softness, with a T-Rex sauce.”

T-Rex nostalgia…

Thank you Gioele Valenti for the intriguing info.
May the road rise with HERSELF!

Album available here on iTunes

(photo by TUTV!)