mevioundergroun...
Piers Faccini - Live in Studio B
Piers Faccini performs live in Studio B of Mevio in San Francisco
Melodies and words are in Faccini's bones and his finely crafted songs resonate with traces of his ancestry. If his songs were maps they would stretch from the English moors to the Saharan dunes via the parched plains of the Mediterrannean before spanning the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Mississippi Delta.
With the opening track from the new album 'My Wilderness', the narrator 'calls out to... the darkness' seeking answers to unknown mysteries, as the rhythm builds to a Southern Italian Pizzica. Piers Faccini uses this beat, traditionally associated with healing and trance, to throw out his lament, weaving in his own lyrics while cellist and long-term friend and accomplice Vincent Segal replies with his bow.
With the track « The Beggar & The Thief » the creative net widens further. As the beguiling dialogue unfolds between the two characters, the song becomes an anthem to the stateless travellers of the world as Ibrahim Maalouf's unmistakable trumpet slides between the voices conjuring up the spirits of early Rai or Balkan dances.
Whilst songs such as « Dreamer » « Three Times Betrayed » or « The Beggar & The Thief » undeniably evoke the dryness of Mediterranean landscapes. Others, on the map of this album, such as « A New Morning, » begin like an ancient work song before flowing into an ocean of choir and strings, transporting us to other climes and to one of the cornerstones of Piers Faccini's writing : the legacy of Skip James, Son House and other pioneer troubadours of the great American songbook.
At the time of his first album in 2004, 'Leave No Trace,' Faccini was living more from his painting than writing and singing songs, and yet the slow-burn impact of his music around the world since then has allowed him to switch his energies full time to music. After years of travelling, and countless gigs with stop-overs in the studios of LA or Paris, collaborating with producers such as JP Plunier or Renaud Letang, this fourth album, « My Wilderness » is a return to this home-spun craft -- an album which has been entirely produced and conceived by the singer-songwriter himself.
Faccini recorded this album at his home in the foothills of Southern France, nestled in the Mediterrannean rocks and flora. For Piers, recording albums means surrounding himself with old friends, people he can talk music with, true accomplices, fellow souls who share a common vision. For the last year or two, the friends he has invited to play and record music with him, at home, are the bassist Jules Bikoko, the drummer Simone Prattico and the violinist Rodrigo D'Erasmo. If music is a journey then with a band such as this it's easy to travel.