In the framework of TRAINS & TRACKS, EUROPALIA invited Melanie De Biasio to write a musical piece evoking Italian immigration in the past century. Using the railways, the singer returned to the source of what the Italians had left behind. Staying in mountain villages and taking with her a portable recording studio and a camera from the period, she collected sounds and images. The light, the water, the heat of the stones, and birdsong fill this long reverie, like that of a child starting out on a long journey.

For the first time, with Lay your ear to the rail (9'40"), Melanie De Biasio has mixed sounds and images in an ode to returning, as hypnotic as landscapes gliding past a train window.

Melanie de Biasio (°1987) is considered as one of the most captivating jazz artists of the moment. She develops a musical universe of aerial beauty, bewitching us with her arrangements as well as her writings. Acclaimed by Philip Selway (Radiohead), Marc Everett (the Eels) and Gilles Peterson (DJ Producer BBC), Melanie De Biasio’s music was chosen for the film Alien: Convenant by Ridley Scott, released in 2017.

Credits
Music: Pascal Paulus, Melanie De Biasio
Words: Gil Helmick, Melanie De Biasio
Images and editing: Melanie De Biasio
Art director and producer: Melanie De Biasio

With great courtesy of Play it Again Sam.