In the new album Tutto è already qui, the past meets “a present that is more alive than ever”. Pagani talks about his idea of music
From the freedom of the PFM years to Crêuza de mä, from the live show with Demetrio Stratos to the new album Everything is already here: a conversation with Mauro Pagani on memory, the size and value of what you choose to remove.
In Mondayone of the pieces from the new Dusco Mauro Pagani rediscovers the landscape of his childhood. “Those landscapes are images of my early life,” he says. In Chiari, in the province of Brescia, almost on the border with Bergamo, “there was a lot of fog” and, returning home, “it was difficult to distinguish one wall from another”. Then, the countryside, with “the corn, the ditches, the mulberry trees”: images that are not just memories, but an affective geography that has entered into his music.
Even the freedom of the first years with PFM belongs to a specific landscape: that of an Italian music that was looking for space. «We lived an intoxicating freedomafter years and years in which we weren’t even allowed to choose our own pieces”, recalls Pagani. Freedom, however, could turn into excess. And in his reading the progressive has known both things: the wonder of discovery and the risk of not knowing how to stop.
The formula with which he summarizes that season is dry: «Progressive has committed suicide due to an excess of notes». Then he explains: «We started playing too much, feeling free without control, improvising for a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes straight, with very long solos». Music that for years had been “wonderful” began, in his opinion, to become “sad, repetitive, a little presumptuous”. From that experience Pagani learned a professional lesson. It reminds one of De André’s maxims which was invaluable to him in his work as a producer: «If you don’t know what to add, remove».
It is a lesson that returns in the story of Crêuza de mäthe album in which the collaboration with Fabrizio De André has found its most complete form. «Fabrizio and I found ourselves at the right time: he was ready to change, I was ready to properly organize what I had in mind». The songs, he says, had the right pace: «They were neither too fast nor too slow. They were walking.”
Pagani came to the album with a rich musical idea, perhaps too rich. It was De André who stopped him: «I would have liked to further exasperate the pieces, the son of an excessively abundant culture. Fabrizio told me: “No, no, you’re crazy: the record is done, you can’t touch it.'” In Pagani’s memory, that gesture of trust and containment is part of the collaborative work: De André brought the lyrics and the idea of the Genoese; Pagani the music and the years of study on the sound traditions of the world. “There is his presence and it is truly a collaborative effort,” he says.
Another fragment of that musical history resurfaces when talking about Rock’n’Roll Exhibitionthe live show with Demetrio Stratos and Paolo Tofani. «It shouldn’t even have been published as a record», says Pagani: the idea was born almost by chance, from a day at the theater and from the desire to rediscover the rock’n’roll of the origins. Even recording was a gamble. The sound engineer had with him a Revox and a little tape; the concert was recorded at reduced speed and reconstructed in the studio. «It was a record that was born by magic», he says. “The musicians were so good that it practically stood on its own.”
The decision to publish it came after Stratos’ death, also to raise funds for his family. Pagani retains the memory of the fun and, at the same time, the awareness of one last opportunity: «Never again would I have thought that it would be the last thing I could record of Demetrius».
From the past the discussion comes to today’s music, overwhelmed by quantity. Pagani calls it «the dictatorship of over-the-counter goods»: «There are algorithms that publish one hundred thousand new pieces a day. It’s not a good thing.” Yet he doesn’t give in to nostalgia: «There’s also a lot of beautiful music out there. It’s just that it’s hard to find it, not to listen to it.” He cites, among examples, the new African music scenes, from Senegal and Mali, full, he says, of energy.
The new album, Everything is already hereholds together precisely the memory and the present. In the song that gives the album its title, two phrases follow one another: «Everything I miss» and «Everything is already here». Pagani describes them as two movements of the same consciousness: on the one hand the past, made up of unforgettable people and years; on the other “the feeling of a present that is more alive than ever, despite everything”.
Even the shape of the record went through a choice and a renunciation. To select the songs, he says, you need instinct, experience and listening to the musicians. «I tried to put everything acceptable that I could think of, then I tried to leave only what was necessary». The result, he says, is “the cleanest and most responsible thing possible.”
A measure that runs through the entire conversation: from the walking music of Crêuza de mä to the excessive notes of progressive music, up to the care with which Pagani constructed the new album. And which fits with his idea of music, capable of remaining present even when everything else changes: «Music has an energy with which you eat everything. It is unique and unrepeatable.”
