Massimo Zamboni and Giovanni Lindo Ferretti share the coincidence of two albums with a shared history: "The journey to Mongolia changed us"

Two albums, two different artistic paths, and a shared history that keeps resurfacing decades later. Massimo Zamboni and Giovanni Lindo Ferretti return at the same time with “La macchia mongolica” and “Pounding, in rhythm“, two works that put the relationship with memory, roots, and above all Mongolia - a country that has profoundly shaped both their personal lives and their music - back at the center. “La macchia mongolica” returns in a new edition enriched by the track “Forme perfette”, featuring Cristiano Roversi and Simone Beneventi. “Pounding, in rhythm” instead documents the theatrical show Ferretti has been bringing to Italian stages. Two independent projects, symbolically unveiled in the same place: the Salone dei Giganti at Palazzo Bentivoglio, in Gualtieri, where a yurt - the traditional dwelling of Mongolian nomads - was set up for the occasion.

In an interview given to Sky TG24, the two figures at the heart of the story of CCCP and C.S.I. talked about the meaning of these new releases, also looking back on their artistic partnership and the reasons that, over time, led them down separate paths. The choice of location is no coincidence. Zamboni recalled his bond with Gualtieri and with the figure of Giovanna Daffini, the folk singer who died in 1969, whose cultural legacy both musicians feel deeply connected to. It is precisely from this relationship with tradition that the idea of bringing music inside a Mongolian tent was born, in intimate shows meant for an audience of about twenty people. A project first imagined a few years ago, but postponed because of the pandemic. The bond with Mongolia dates back to 1996, when Zamboni and Ferretti arrived there almost unprepared, prompted by an unexpected invitation. “We set off unprepared, without any prior study or reading. We opened our eyes and our other senses to understand what Mongolia would mean to us,” Zamboni recalled, for whom the journey and the act of telling it represent two sides of the same path of discovery. “Telling your own story means trying to give others the best of yourself,” he explained, pointing out how the artistic dimension can sometimes reach a depth that's hard to hold onto in everyday life.
The title “La macchia mongolica” also carries symbolic weight: it refers to a congenital birthmark traditionally associated, in Mongolian folklore, with descent from Genghis Khan, one that tends to fade with age. For the musician, that image becomes a suggestion about origins, migrations, and the continuity between generations. “I've never been afraid to talk about death and disappearance, but here we're talking about births,” he observed.

Even more radical is the meaning Giovanni Lindo Ferretti attaches to Mongolia. The singer described his return to the country, thirty years after his first trip, as a regenerating experience that came at a particularly unpredictable moment in his life. After choosing silence and solitude, he found himself first back on stage with CCCP, then reconsidering the possibility of returning to confront the legacy of CSI, and finally back in Mongolia once again. “I'm amazed by the things that happen around me,” he confessed, also recalling the curious coincidence of buying a yurt just hours before Zamboni expressed his own intention to get one for his project. Returning to Mongolia, he explained, allowed him to rediscover an existential dimension far removed from Western habits: sleeping in traditional dwellings, waking up immersed in a completely different landscape, and rediscovering an essential relationship with time and space.
For Ferretti, after all, Mongolia has never been simply a geographical destination. “I didn't go to Mongolia to gain something, but to lose pieces of myself. I came back poorer in ego, and changed,” he stated. An experience that intertwines with his family origins, tied to shepherding, transhumance, and a rural culture in which he recognized striking affinities with Mongolian nomadism.

The 1996 journey also marked a decisive turning point in the history of the relationship between the two musicians, helping to transform both their personal and artistic perspectives. Ferretti recalled how that encounter with such a distant culture had called many of their certainties into question, accompanying a phase of change that would gradually lead both of them toward different experiences. But it was above all when speaking about Zamboni that Ferretti offered one of the interview's most meaningful reflections, acknowledging the fundamental role the guitarist played in their shared history. “He has a more scientific and logical way of relating to the world than I do. Having him by my side was essential for both CCCP and CSI: without him, I would have destroyed the dream.” A statement that captures the complementary nature of a partnership between two deeply different personalities. On one side, Zamboni's methodical rigor and sense of memory; on the other, Ferretti's instinct and unpredictability. “He remembers things, while I just go with the flow. His album is thought through, mine arrived all of a sudden,” the singer added.

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