Daniele Luppi to Release New Album WILMA with Michael Kiwanuka, Orion Sun
The album's first single, To Some Degree, features Mercury Prize winner Michael Kiwanuka.
Italian composer Daniele Luppi's love for — and devotion to — vintage Italian films and their music scores comes to life on his new album Wilma, a golden-hued collection of compositions with vocal contributions from the Mercury Prize-winning Michael Kiwanuka and Orion Sun. Enrobed in a warm analog production and embellished by Luppi's contemporary instrumentation, subtle effects and blending, Wilma combines timeless arrangements with modern flourishes, ultimately creating a transportive cinematic soundscape.
Wilma will be released on October 9 via Verve/slowplay and is available for pre-order now at https://danieleluppi.lnk.to/Wilma.
It was like a dream come true when a synchronistic opportunity dropped into Luppi's lap: unprecedented access to a vintage library of thousands of already-recorded compositions originally put together by some of Italy's top session players of the 60's, 70's and 80's — the Italian equivalent of The Wrecking Crew. Daniele had a brilliant revelation: What if he could find some forgotten, unpolished jewels in this vast repository of largely never-used music score goodness, then supply embellishments, editing them all together, mixing them into timeless songs that could speak to all eras?
In this case, for Wilma – the first volume of what will be Luppi's unique, experimental trilogy – there are cues and tracks culled from a myriad assortment of 1970s scores from obscure Italian feature films, commercials, short subjects, documentaries and industrial films, a few of which were partially utilized at the time and many more rescued from cold storage, where they'd awaited the right simpatico fit with some filmmaker's project or marketing director's TV commercial.
Daniele explains, 'As far as my role? The closest I can relate to is a film documentarian. There are many parallels as I was working with existing footage which are the vintage tracks. And I am adding new faces, which are my singers, plus writing a script which are my lyrics. Then I do some editing and 'color correction,' which is the audio work I've done, the synths (for the gearheads: exclusively a 1984 Yamaha DX7 with stock presets) and live drums overdub I played, then the mixing (done only with a Lexicon PCM70) etc. The difference, though, is – unlike a documentarian – I created a totally new original story with the found material.'
The announcement of Wilma is accompanied by the release of the yearning spaghetti western inspired track, 'To Some Degree' ft. Michael Kiwanuka. The inviting slow burn is Kiwanuka at his best, delivering lyrics that lay his heart open wide with haunting clarity.
On working with Michael Kiwanuka Daniele reflects, 'I was drawn to Michael Kiwanuka's profound sense of humanity. It's there in every lyric he sings and every performance he gives. His artistic perspective and the way he communicates it are incredibly rare.'
That 'sense of humanity' is integral to the overarching theme of Wilma, namely the universal love saga we all dream about, that we hope and pray for — though the album also delves deep into the idiosyncrasies of 'modern love.'
To bring Wilma to fruition, Daniele enlisted the talents of Kiwanuka and Orion Sun, who split time singing on the album and contributed to the songwriting. The songs also feature lyrical contributions from Daniele's trusted poetic confidant, GRAMMY Award-winning Zimbabwean-American singer, songwriter and producer, Shungudzo (Jessie Ware, Angelique Kidjo). Daniele's unconventional approach to casting the album's vocalists was rooted in something closer to voice casting for film than a traditional feature selection. The decision wasn't based solely on vocal timbre, but also on each artist's body of work— the themes they explore in their songwriting and the emotional character of their performances throughout their catalogs.
The album's striking cover art is a reproduction of a publicity still of the actress Edith Scob (Eyes Without A Face) taken by avant-garde Spanish photographer Antonio Gálvez on the set of legendary surrealist master Luis Bunuel's 1969 satire on religious dogma, The Milky Way.
Tracklist
Blame Games ft. Michael Kiwanuka
Thoughts & Words ft. Orion Sun
Reverie #1
Fallin' Dreams ft. Michael Kiwanuka
So Low ft. Orion Sun
Reverie #2
To Some Degree ft. Michael Kiwanuka
Anxiety ft. Orion Sun
Reverie #3
You Could Be The Sun, I Could Be The Moon ft. Orion Sun, Michael Kiwanuka
Photo Credit: Liz Hart
Photo Credit: Liz Hart
