Nada - The eternal muse of Italian rock

The release of the successful "I Take Up Little Space" is the occasion for a chat with Nada Malanima: about the new record, above all, but also about her way of living music, in constant evolution, in a perpetual state of change, always searching for new limits.

Well, you need a bit of irony in life, don't you? Everything is relative: if I think of myself compared to the world, I see myself as tiny. And if I think of Earth compared to the universe, it's just a speck too. Like any title, it can be read in many ways. As for me, I think that, with a bit of time, I've come to understand how important personal space is, because you always want to do more and more things and you don't realize you're losing focus on what you already have. So "I Take Up Little Space" isn't a negative statement, quite the opposite: it means that within each of us there's a whole world.

The new record features arrangements quite different from those you've used in the past: tell us how the idea of using a mini-orchestra came about, and what it was like working with Enrico Gabrielli?

Things come about naturally, in the sense that every time I like to try different solutions. After all, each album has its own songs and stories to tell, and the beauty of my job lies in experimenting with ideas and solutions alongside new people, even though in the end everything is always filtered through my own language. In the case of "I Take Up Little Space", I needed different sonorities, I felt this urge to build stories with different sounds, let's say more acoustic and classical ones, but without using them in a "classical" way, rather in a rock, punk, pop key, call it what you like. So I went looking for the right people, those who could help me in this. The choice fell on Enrico Gabrielli, with whom I shared a tough year of work, comparing notes on each other's ideas. And in the end I can proudly say I'm happy with how this record turned out - it was a long but stimulating process.

So, it was worth it

Certainly. You know what I'll say? I think it's one of my best records, precisely in terms of the whole, the unity of the different songs, which can still be very different episodes from one another, because it's almost a concept album of women's stories. Usually I'm not very kind to my own work, but this time I'll say it with conviction: I think "I Take Up Little Space" is my most "centered" record in terms of lyrics, arrangements, and singing. Even the sound and mastering are perfect. In short, I find it complete and harmonious: it feels like a miracle to me!

Speaking of women's stories: the album cover and the video for the first single, "L'ultima festa", both feature masked women as protagonists. What do they represent?

More than masks, I see them as helmets that, worn by petite women like the one on the cover, symbolize the will not to be distracted, to want to focus on oneself — one of the reflections that, as I mentioned, underpin this work. When it came to choosing how to shoot the cover photo — one of the fun parts of making an album — I came across this shot and immediately fell in love with it, because it conveyed something that mattered to me too. As I was saying earlier, "I Take Up Little Space" tells women's stories from angles that tend to be hidden. Sure, women are also beautiful and sensual, but that's not all there is: I like to talk about fragility, weakness, those less visible sides of the feminine universe.

New record, new label. By now it seems like a rule...

I make my record, I submit it to whoever needs to hear it, and then I take home whichever offer seems most convincing. If I want to keep doing the things I love, I have to look to the so-called "independent" scene (a term I hate). It's the only way I can get the freedom I need, and that's fine by me.

How will the songs sound live?

Well, that was one of my main concerns. Touring with twelve musicians was simply impossible, mainly for cost reasons. So we cut the orchestra down to five members, tested it out in a sort of warm-up show a couple of months ago to see how it came across, and realized it works perfectly, precisely because the arrangements are written so beautifully. Live, then, the songs will sound just as they do on the record: we'll have viola, trombone and bassoon.

Over the course of your career, had you already had the chance to perform your songs arranged for classical instruments?

Yes, that happened many years ago, back in the days of Piero Ciampi. I believe new songs should be played live just as they are on the album, and then, as the years go by, they can also be revisited in different ways. In any case, I'm eager to play the new songs, so... see you out there.

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