"In the first album you search, in the second you focus, in the third you find yourself:. and here I am," says Chiara Civello in describing her third album titled "7752" of upcoming release.
7752 is the distance in Kilometers from New York City to Rio de Janeiro, the two cities that provided the inspiration for this album. New York is where Chiara lives, while Rio changed Chiara's life:
While visiting her friend, Daniel Jobim, in Rio in February 2008, Chiara was taken to a party (known as SARAO) where artists and musicians of all kinds get together. The guitar went around and everyone sang a song. As Chiara shared, listened, and learned, a new phase of her artistic path began. "Co-writing I was already familiar with," says Chiara, "since those unforgettable three days spent in Santa Monica in which I wrote Trouble with Burt Bacharach for my first album:but in Brazil everyone co writes. It's a big party, everyone shares and dares and makes it happen."
Ana Carolina, a Brazilian pop star, is one of the main collaborators of 7752. Not only did she co-write five of the songs with Chiara, but she also played acoustic guitar on most of them. "We met at that party and she asked me if I had a melody for her, so the next day I started "RESTA", a song that soon after we finished together and sang as a duet live in Sao Paulo." Success has already accompanied the collaboration with Ana Carolina, as RESTA will be featured on the new Novela of Globo TV called "Passione," starting on May 17, 2010. Written between Rio, New York, and Trastevere (Rome), 7752 includes ten musical moments of which eight were recorded in NYC (and produced by the eclectic producer Andres Levin), while four were recorded in Rio and produced by Chiara herself.
"All my friends and favorite musicians merged into this record in the most natural way:it was like bringing the Rio spirit into the studio: Mauro Refosco (Thom Yorke, David Byrne, Forro' in The Dark) and Guilherme Monteiro (Ron Carter, Forro in The Dark) had already recorded with me and I couldn't possibly think of a record without them, Anat Cohen is one of my best friends and I have always wanted to have her on my album but we never were able to make it happen; Jaques Morelenbaum is one of the most talented and sentimental musicians I have ever met; Mark Ribot was the perfect guy for these songs, not to mention the great rhythm section that Andres brought in the studio, Gene Lake on the drums and Jonathan Maron on the bass. Ana Carolina who wrote most of the songs with me already owned them on the acoustic guitar and added her tremendous groove to them".
Already defined as an "enticing and contagious" album, 7752 sounds lively, while portraying a new, playful and joyous aspect of Chiara's singing and songwriting. The sound is a beautiful alchemy among the 60s, Italian melody, Brazilian harmonies, and R&B.
Following are Chiara's Notes, song by song:
L'uomo che non sa dire addio/ He doesn't know how to say goodbye it was originally a song about a girl. Antonio Villeroy's song (great Brazilian composer) "Ela Nao Sabe Dizer Adeus" is the original bossa nova of which I made an Italian and English version. Not only did I turn the girl into a boy, but I also totally changed the rhythm. The lyrics are indeed different but the title is really what gave me all the inspiration.
My Somewhere to go I wrote in New York City with Itaal Shur. When I came back from Rio I had only the first eight bars, and the song really wanted to meet Itaal:he's such a song's craftsman, writing with him was a real pleasure. With Ana Carolina it was really a mind opening process because everything was written in two versions. We started from the melody and then she brain stormed in Portuguese while I did in Italian. It was beautiful to see how one language helped the other in developing the basic idea of the song. Many songs were born, songs that we both recorded in our versions. Beside our first one "RESTA", we wrote in Trastevere "8 Storie, in Rio "Dimmi Perche' (10 minutos)" and the bluesy ballad "I didn't want (Mais Que a mim)". With the two of us, songs just stormed out.
In the three songs I wrote alone, I never really felt "alone". One More thing, one of my favorites, I started in Rome and finished in Sicily in my father's house. I'm your love I finished on the Williamsburg Bridge, between Brooklyn and Manhattan. "Non Avevo Capito Niente" is the first song I wrote for the album, on a beautiful piano in an apartment in the heart of Rome, imagining Jaques Morelenbaum's cello and his sublime string arrangement.
When I had already closed the repertoire for the album, during a lovely afternoon in the company of Ana Carolina and Diana Tejera (an Italian singer/songwriter) we said to each other: today we're going to write a cheery happy song. And so it was: SOFA' magically took place."
