Their new album, “Risuona” is a journey through authorial reinterpretations that transforms foreign classics into intimate and Italian stories
For a few days, by turning on the radio or browsing the music platforms, you can come across a particularly catchy song, both for the music – the version takes the notes of a famous song from the Eighties – and for the very pleasant chorus.
After two years since their last release, the time has come for a big comeback for THE Disturbanceand they do it with the album “It resonates”, released on October 9th (The Saifam Group), anticipated by the song “Quel che non ho pisi”, their version of “Only You”, a song originally performed by the English group Yazoo.
A translated, rearranged and reinterpreted version, to give it a touch of personality. Just like they did with all the songs on the album. The role of arranger and “translator” is mainly entrusted to Tommaso Cerasuolofrontman and singer of the group, who tells us how his passion for transposing it into our language is something that has always accompanied him.
Tommaso, why this album?
“I have always been interested in translations since high school, but not as a purely literal transposition. The song must not be “Italianized”, but interpreted, maintaining the same meaning, but with a more musical language. English is by its nature a language with a faster rhythm. Just think of the word “love”: the British language, to sing it and rhyme it, requires only one syllable, the Italian three (a-mo-re).
I like to translate trying to convey the same emotion that the original song evokes in me, transferring the same sensitivity and evocative power.”
Just as you did with “Quel che non hopiù”, the opening song of the new album
“Compared to the original there is a different interpretation of the window in the first verse; I researched and gave more importance to the musicality and the adaptation of emotions. The window here is the metaphor to tell a love that is still desired but now impossible: the two exes, each beyond the glass, are now incapable of communicating.”
How did you choose the songs on the album?
“I have a very tall notebook that dates back to high school, when we started playing, where I wrote down the songs I loved, the first ones to practice with, the first covers brought to the stage. And little by little those songs became hundreds. It is from that notebook, from that pile of papers that I drew to choose the songs for the new album. The ones to give an Italian version to. “Only You” is the only truly famous song; the others are not by choice. To give a greater possibility of listening and to help the songs wear their own personality without the weight of their musical heritage.
Furthermore, all translated texts, before they can be published, must be examined by the original authors, and today the rules are decidedly stricter than those of the Sixties, when reinterpreting a foreign song in Italian was almost a musical custom. Think for example of the lightness and “permissiveness” of the translation of the famous passage Dreamer of the Supertramp, transformed in 1977 by Renato Zero into Stualdrina!”
However, your translations have received excellent reviews from the authors, such as “Music in another language”
“It’s the song that opens the album, “Music in a foreign language” by Lloyd Cole. He liked the Italian version so much that he wanted to participate with a featuring.”
You were born at school almost forty years ago
“In a scientific high school on the outskirts of Turin at the end of the 1980s. Boys who didn’t even know how to play, with musical techniques yet to be discovered, who decided to form a group. We learned to play: some found their instrument immediately, others experimented with some before finding the right one, and those who, like me, after trying to play, decided to become a singer!”
The secret to your longevity?
“We are a group that has become a family: indeed, two members of the band are brothers and the two boys who took other paths were romantically linked to each other. The recipe for being happy together for such a long time is the possibility of having their own space. Everyone brings their own contribution while giving themselves time to cultivate individual projects. Working out of passion without the frenzy of necessarily having to publish something on pre-established dates.”
How does today’s Tommaso approach the public, compared to the high school student of many years ago?
“Lately I like to give more space to the communication aspect with the public and fans, talking to each other between one song and another. I like to dialogue with them, using words as a glue between our musical pieces. It makes the relationship between the band and the fans more mature and intimate.
In these weeks there will be meetings open to the public, during which we will share stories and anecdotes related to the creation of the new album, and we will perform some songs live. We did it last October 8th in Milanand we will repeat on the 12th at the Circolo dei Lettori in Turin and on the 14th at the Feltrinelli in via Appia Nuova in Rome.”
A question you wish I would have asked you?
“I’ll ask you a question. In each interview I ask for a cover song that I don’t know, in order to have new material and enrich my personal baggage.”
No doubts. A song that I am very fond of because my mother always listened to it on Sunday mornings, as a big Mal fan. “Thought of love”Franco Migliacci’s adaptation of the song “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You” by the Bee Gees.
When you could still indulge in interpretations.
