Alessandra Celletti
Overground

Someone, in a humorous, affectionate, or irreverent way, expressed the desire to see me, my first and last name, on these pages. And so here I am... for a self-review. Or better: I will try not to pass judgments on my work (as that is up to you), but I will talk to you a bit about how and from what "Overground" was born. The idea for "Overground" came to me from the repeated French nuclear tests on Mururoa: the fact that it seemed absurd to me (apart from the absurdity of the atomic bomb itself, apart from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, apart from Chernobyl, apart from everything we are not allowed to know) was considering a Pacific island thousands of kilometers away a private property that could be freely abused. It was 1996 and I, with a rather calm disposition, was angry about these continuous bombings, done moreover only "for testing." (Today, because of these "tests," the cancer mortality rate among the population around the testing site is 34% compared to 17% nationally). I thought: I too have a weapon. Music! That's it: this CD (from 1997) is my voice against what seemed, and still seems, an injustice against mankind and the environment. And it is my voice (electronically processed to resemble a child's voice) that opens the CD with "Hum Bom"! The words of Allen Ginsberg "We bomb, we bomb ourselves..." are transformed into a little nursery rhyme. Are bombings perhaps just a game?

1996 was also the year when I started to approach electronic music, and on this CD there is all the enthusiasm and fun of discovering something directly for the first time: samplers, synthesizers, computers... a real sound universe. I never worried about originality, but rather about sincerity, and what I can assure you is that this work is created with great care. There will certainly be elements traceable to my classical experience, my love for an experimenter like Brian Eno, my attraction to minimalism and circularity... With the contribution of fragments of Polynesian choirs and the beautiful voices of Cinzia Lenti and soprano Rosaria Perini. And a few musical phrases even on my dear piano...

Meanwhile, I send a warm greeting to all of you and to myself 5 bright stars...