Discography

377 project is an artistic project dedicated to Sardinia. Between 2018 and 2019, I visited the 377 municipalities of Sardinia traveling exclusively by bicycle: one a day for 14 months. It was for me the opportunity to describe my island in sounds, words and images; a journey outside the routes and the logic of contemporary tourism, with a bass ukulele in the essential luggage; a journey through a small land, which some called "nearly a continent" but which I prefer to call "many continents", due to the boundless diversity it contains.

What prompted me to undertake this journey was the desire to know in depth my land, the landscapes, urban centres and the people, letting my music absorb their essence. With my bass ukulele I thus composed 377 music fragments, one a day for each municipality visited, with the idea of arranging them and expanding them to other instruments once the journey was over.

Peter Waters's refined touch, Roberto Migoni's solid drumming, Francesco Morittu's inventiveness, guests Max De Aloe and Emanuele Contis' lyricism, as well as all of their precious ideas and arrangements, have enhanced my music fragments which have come to life, becoming multifaceted versions of what I originally created with just my bass ukulele.

Together with the sound of my double bass, these musicians have contributed to create a sonority that evokes in music what I felt during the journey: the enthusiasm of the beginning, the amazement before incredible scenarios, in front of nature, archaeology, the melancholy transmitted by some small villages in the process of depopulation, the calm of some uncontaminated and sometimes desolate landscapes, the energy of the inhabitants of some lively villages, and also the sadness of some told stories.

I also included in this work some field recordings made while traveling, to give the idea of the sounds that accompanied me from one place to another. I used sounds of nature but also of human activities and music of the Sardinian tradition by artists I met during the journey.

377 is a magic number, one of the few with three digits in the Fibonacci sequence, therefore linked to the golden ratio, a number that in nature combines micro to macro, human to divine, and which has filled this project with beauty and a special aura.

Sebastiano Dessanay

In 'Nautilus' narration is the common path that crosses all the music. Every track hides a little story, whose delevopment takes the distance from its written aspect and totally trusts the improvised inventiveness of the performer. This way, in the open space of improvisation, there takes place an ancient challenge: to combine again the elements and to include new ones, paying attention to enrich and not to weaken the narrative effectiveness. Other times, like in 'Buono dopo il caffè' or 'Compagni di viaggio', the delicate expressive shell of the track suggests the absence of furher changes, and looks for shelter in the stillness of a quiet conclusion.

If it is possibile to tell a story made of artistic stages, relationships and reference points through an album, then this is very evident in Duets Of A Fool, the new album by double bassist Sebastiano Dessanay, released by SLAM Productions label, the UK based label with which he has already released two other works. The eleven tracks are duets swinging between improvisation and composition, which explore, remember, celebrate and throw new ideas for the future. Recurring phrases, circular elements and great musicality permeate this album: "The duets are intentionally short", says the Sardinian Birmingham-based double bassist, "Although completely improvised, they tend to a form and to the recall of musical elements typical of written music".

All the ten artists that converse with him, one for each track, have been part of his artistic career. A conversation within himself is added: the two fools of the opening track are just two self-deprecating facets of the bassist, as in a monologue at the mirror. The artists featured in the album range from new generation talents such as the Italian trumpeter Fulvio Sigurtà to established names of the British free jazz scene such as Paul Dunmall and Mark Sanders. There are several artists from Sardinia, where Dessanay started as a bass player: pianist Sebastiano Meloni, who uses improvisation as his main artistic device, classical-contemporary guitar player Francesco Morittu and jazz pianist Augusto Pirodda, who recorded with Paul Motian e Gary Peacock. And the UK-based artists that have collaborated with Dessanay in the past few years: Scottish sax player Rachael Cohen, London Sinfonietta oboist Melinda Maxwell and clarinetist and songwriter Jack McNeill.

Isla, land of absent silence,
where sound and noise live together
in perfect democracy