The Lonesome Thing

There's a feeling - one I believe many musicians know well - of finding, or perhaps recognizing, within the act of playing and studying one's instrument, an intimate and at times all-consuming space. A deep relationship with the material at hand. The ineffable mystery of certain intervals, the way a sound's color bends in a passage, those unresolved imperfections, and the licks that keep beckoning, as if they still hold something just out of reach - like a necessary certainty, or a question left unanswered.

In the quiet and solitude of those moments, I believe a voice hides - a vital whisper - that, now and then, glows with a kind of rare light.

The appearance of that flicker repays all the fatigue and boredom of repetition, all the effort spent lingering over an arpeggio, the struggle of certain articulations, the tonal distances that ask for a particular timbral grace.

So it happens that some fragments, some stubborn fixations, some repeated returns, find their way back in unexpected ways - and become fertile ground. The pieces that appear in The Lonesome Thing are, perhaps, a gathering of those.. studies, I'd say so.

They are ideas and paths that often took shape in the middle of other sonic journeys: • some were born during recordings for other projects, others in the calm of warm-ups between tour dates, others still while testing the acoustics of a venue before a concert. But I came to see them as precious vessels - "little cases of myself."

In selecting the playlist, I followed a thread - a narrative line that seemed to emerge from the contrast between contemplative and more assertive moments. Some melodies wanted to vanish and return, certain silences floated with quiet solemnity, some intervals painted the expressive intent, while echoes of dear masters and the scent of distant places revealed themselves in phrasing and form.

The Lonesome Thing owes much to the sonic fidelity and respectful dedication of Lorenzo Sempio, who oversaw the recording and balance of this work. Lorenzo holds a rare and vanishing gift: the art of listening.

Gianni Mimmo