For Mario Biondi, a song is not just a melody to be completed nor a single to be put into circulation. It is a form that takes shape over time: in the writing, in the arrangements, in the way the musicians listen to each other, even in the imperfections that the recording decides to preserve. «For me the album is very important: it’s a story». It is from this idea that one can enter Two Entitiesthe new album in English which follows Author’s proofreleased last year.
Biondi explains the decision to publish his first album in Italian this way: «It was precisely the power of love. I had it there too long.” The close distance between the two projects it seemed like an unusual choice to him, but not a reason to postpone. «There are no more rules in the music industry, and basically I like this». The transition from Italian to English is accompanied by the meeting with musicians coming from different experiences. Two Entitiesrecorded between Italy, England and the United States, brings together, among others, Antonio Faraò, Leee John, Till Brönner, Max dei Gabin, Mia Cooper, Harvey Mason, John Patitucci and Dominique Di Piazza.
The title indicates two of the components that Biondi recognizes as fundamental in his path: «Jazz and swing as a language, and undoubtedly the soul vein which has always characterized and fascinated me over the years.” These souls coexist on the record, giving shape to different ways of understanding rhythm, voice and writing. The release also coincides with the year of celebrations for the twentieth anniversary of This Is What You Are and Handful of Soul, two central chapters of a discography that Biondi continues to explore even live.
When asked if he realized he had become a classic, he replies with irony: «I notice this because even those in their forties call me maestroand this already makes me think that I’m starting to get a little older.” Then he returns to a song that he considers his strong point: «This is what you are was already born with the presumption of being a classic. It had such an intriguing double bass riff that it struck a chord all over the world.” The lifespan of a song, he suggests, is measured in how it continues to be heard and shared.
Also Cocktail Bluewritten by Biondi for music and lyrics and created with the production collaboration of Riccardo Piparo, moves from a specific musical season. The song looks back to the house dance of a few decades ago and to the memory that that sound brings with it: «We wanted to retrace that era with that healthy and melancholic desire to tell a journey experienced and shared». Biondi himself defines it with a neologism as «an extremely “single” song», but his attention remains focused on the broader form of the album. «I’m no longer looking for the song. An album must tell something.”
The distinction is close to his heart. «I’ve always had a certain allergy to the single, since the 1980s», he says, immediately adding that he too has resorted to that format. What has changed is the context in which an artist tries to bring out a new work. «Today, especially those like me and those of the previous generation, find themselves a bit embarrassed: how do you promote a new single, a new project? Radio still has some power, but the truth is that today the single is driven primarily by TikTok». The album, for Biondi, however, offers the space to build a path in which the songs illuminate each other.
That story takes shape before entering the studio. «The audition is the moment of creativity, when you have an open mind and a wild imagination. Already at that moment I received indications on the sounds and atmospheres to build”, he says. Writing often makes him imagine the arrangement too. For Two Entitieshe says, the preproduction was already well defined: «I added musicians in the studio while maintaining the line I had traced». When it comes to leading them, he prefers to leave room for initiative. «I watch a lot… I provide an initial outline and let them all vent. Then, little by little, I take them towards what I would like to do.”
Familiarity and trust count in this process. Biondi says that bassist and double bass player John Patitucci he spoke to him naturally, as a relative would, telling him that he appreciated his music. «When you find yourself in front of these people and they show you affection and openness, you take courage and with a bit of cheek you ask: “Would you play on one of my songs?”». The response, he recalls, was simple: “Send it to me, we’ll do it right away.”
Also the drummer Harvey Masonwhich Biondi considers a myth for the work he did with musicians like George Benson, remained in his memory for its simplicity. «He was there listening to my vocal audition with admiration: “What a voice, what a beauty”». In his story, prestige leaves room for direct relationships and unceremonious listening.
Then there is a fundamental question: what makes a record alive? Biondi remembers well when he had the original tapes in his hands After The Love Has Gone by Earth, Wind & Fire. And how surprised he was by the fact that, between verse and chorus, the bpm went from eighty to one hundred and five beats: «Twenty-five more, yet if you go and listen to the song you won’t notice it. Because it sounds wonderful like that.” The variation does not compromise the coherence of the music; it allows her to move and react to the performance. «It happens when a piece is alive, moves, breathes. Like a man who doesn’t always breathe in the same way: every now and then he slows down, then he starts again.”
It’s the opposite of the idea that good recording should make every element identical and immobile. «Today the musician has been trained for thirty years to stay on a click and to understand what compression is», observes Biondi. Precision is part of the trade, but the sound can lose character if it is always reduced to the same regularity. «Sometimes the little imperfections make the piece work». Biondi also recalls harmonic deviations which, isolated on paper, might seem like errors but which in the context of the performance instead contribute to the character of the piece. Music is a set of relationships: the tempo between musicians, the response of an instrument, the way the sound changes from one moment to the next.
For this reason, the engineers on the great Seventies albums had a role that went far beyond adjusting levels. «The sound engineer had to be empathetic first of all. He didn’t have to exactly calculate the samples of one kick and the downbeat of the other kick. He had to understand the picture.” Like an art critic, he was called upon to interpret what musicians had done and to recognize its power. “If they played that way and it was convincing, the engineer had to be able to understand it.” His weight in the final result, he says, was “very, very high”.
In Biondi’s memory, the engineers of the great records of the Seventies knew how to measure the space and air of the recording. «When everything is recorded on a tape, sometimes there is no air; then you have to add it with reverbs, with different environments, in different points.” A guitar can carry some weight in a passage, then retreat as the piano takes center stage. These are decisions that require listening to the song as a whole. «If you level everything with a compressor and make sure everything is even and compressed in the same way, you risk losing a lot of the original recording».
The Neve benches also belong to this image of work, which Biondi remembers as instruments full of valves and channels, costing a million dollars. «Today, one or two channels of a Neve are often used to warm up the sound that has been recorded with the help of a computer».
The same principle informs the way Biondi thinks about funk. For Take Your Soul to the Funkone of the songs on the new album, would have liked to push the roughness even more. He remembers the horns recorded live and the fear that, through compression and subsequent processing, they would lose part of their presence. «Those are six horn players playing live. You can’t turn them into a single line: otherwise, instead of calling six people, you call one with a keypad.” In the joke there is a reference to the tendency to standardize the sound and a declaration of method: if you choose six musicians, you have to let the difference between six people and a single programmed part be heard.
Take Your Soul To The Funk it is part, together with One BIg Family and The Noise of the people, of the spectacular triptych that closes the album between black power, Motown and essential funk.
Among his musical references Biondi also cites: the rock of Toto, fusion, the soul and country side of the Doobie Brothers, and Michael McDonald. «I have always been passionate about all musical genres. I have never set limits for myself.” The influences, in his story, pass through the voice and become part of a recognizable identity. «Many tell me that when I sing, music takes on the connotations of my personality, my way of being and living».
Then there’s the moment when a song leaves the studio and becomes part of the listener’s experience. Mario says it without hesitation: «Some songs are more the public’s than mine». It is also for this reason that, live, he tries to maintain a link with the form proposed on the album. «I don’t like to give a totally different vision. I like to be consistent with what I did at the beginning.” A classic, in his story, is not a song removed from time: it is a form that the listeners have made their own and that the musician has the task of returning, evening after evening, without canceling the first meeting. «You must play the song in its original version, the one you gave to the public and that people fell in love with.”
