Franco Battiato featured on RaiPlay's “Mondi lontanissimi” podcast

The new Original RaiPlay podcast “Mondi lontanissimi – la radio di Franco Battiato” will be available from December 22nd, an eight-episode sonic journey through the voices, interviews, ironic confessions and spiritual tales of one of the most enigmatic and luminous artists in Italian music. A project by Edoardo De Falchi drawing on material from the Rai Radio Archive.

“Over the course of his long and extraordinary career, Franco Battiato took part in numerous interviews and live performances broadcast on state radio and television – the Rai press release points out – We spent several months immersed in this sea of material preserved in the Rai archives. Coming back up for air, we tried to go through it all again with a light touch, glimpsing from afar Battiato's many 'worlds', much as he himself did in his own public appearances, always through allusion and often with irony. Listening to him in these fragments, we can catch sight of the many faces of his life and work, the breadth of his interests, the depth of certain of his intuitions – all elements also scattered throughout his songs, amid learned references and multiple levels of meaning. Starting from memories of his Sicilian childhood, moving through the various phases of his artistic career and the 'encounters' that changed his life, Battiato offers a narrative rich in adventures of the spirit and journeys to the East, but also in tenderness and irony.”

Here are the chapters that make up the podcast.

1 – The Crisis

From his first instruments to his television debut, Battiato recalls the moment when pop music started to feel like a cage to him. The crisis becomes a turning point: abandoning catchy tunes and discovering electronic experimentation. Amid pioneering synths, Stockhausen and the early Bla Bla records, a new musical universe takes shape.

2 – Stockhausen's Advice

The frontal voice, dodging military service, the study of classical notation: years of research that bring him to the threshold of the singer-songwriter tradition. His return to pop in '79 with L'era del cinghiale bianco marks the bridge between genres that only seem worlds apart. Live performances and interviews reveal an artist in transformation.

3 – Riding Bicycles Home

His Sicilian childhood, caught between tribal freedom and family discipline, intertwines with mystical revelations and his earliest musical passions. Memories, journeys, encounters with the East, and the discovery of eros as surrender. His songs become places of memory and vision, captured live and in rare interviews.

4 – Millions of People Quoting Adorno

From the Milan of the 1960s to the folk inventions of Cab64, all the way to the pop ascent of His Master's Voice. Battiato moves through cultures, ideologies and languages while always remaining independent. Between Gurdjieff, Proust, Stockhausen and Radius, his music becomes a place where thought turns into song.

5 – Fifteen Wild Girls

From the physiognomy he learned in his aunt's tailor shop to his collaborations with Alice, Giuni Russo and Milva. Battiato explores ancient worlds, deserts, myths and landscapes that defy description. Between subversive TV lip-syncs and telematic concerts, a visionary relationship with image and the feminine emerges.

6 – Fragments of an Unknown Teaching

The collapse of Noto Cathedral, his views on pop music, the composition of the Messa arcaica: art, spirituality and disenchantment coexist. Battiato speaks of profound crises, meditation, encounters with teachers and books that change one's life. Unforgettable live moments round out the picture.

7 – The radio of Franco Battiato

From New York concerts to hilarious cameos on Fiorello's shows. Music, irony and philosophy intertwine in his collaborations with Sgalambro and Bufalino. Radio becomes a space for play, thought and freedom, between rare performances and surprising dialogues.

8 – Wandering through the tennis courts

Political commitment, concerts in wounded places, idealism and disillusionment: Battiato reflects on justice, identity and spirituality. His relationship with Sgalambro opens up metaphysical and literary questions. Between "Povera patria", "La cura" and one last inner journey, the story closes in a higher light.

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