Italian rock noir band BELLADONNA has released a one/off single titled “Spartacus”, and its video was shot by the band’s singer Luana Caraffa as a selfie video!
“We cannot be conclusively sure it is the first Selfie Music Video of all time, but after watching it you will agree with us that its surreal time-bending aspect makes it the craziest!” quips Luana.
“Spartacus” is inspired by the slave gladiator who started and led the major slave uprising against Rome in 72 BC. “It’s a rebel song, a call to arms, 2 minutes of pure anthemic fury” says Luana. “We wrote it a few days ago and it portrays so powerfully how we feel in this current world climate that we’ve decided to speed-record it and release it immediately” adds Dani Macchi, BELLADONNA’s guitarist and producer.
Italian rock noir band BELLADONNA has released a retrospective mixtape on audiocassette only!!
The 20 songs on the “BELLADONNA MIXTAPE” – a double album, comprising 2 sides of a C90 tape! – are cherry-picked from our band’s musical journey so far, and include “Foreverland” (included in the “Best Rock Song” category of the 2009 Grammy Awards ballot), “Let There Be Light” (written and recorded with legendary UK composer Michael Nyman), “The God Below” (featured on the International TV Spot for the Hollywood blockbuster 2015 movie “Minions”) – plus our as yet unreleased noir cover of Del Shannon’s classic 1961 track “Runaway”.
The release is a limited edition (available for one month only, started the 10th of January) and – in authentic 70/80s mixtape style! – the tracklist on the cassette cover is handwritten, in this case by our singer Luana Caraffa!
“Our musical and recording aesthetic has always been totally analog, so our retrospective album just HAD to be on cassette!” says Luana“And we must confess that when we played back our cassette mixtape we were amazed by how wonderfully analog and beautifully organic the songs sounded coming off the tape!”
“Nick Hornby in ‘High Fidelity’ said that making a mixtape was like writing a letter” adds our guitarist Dani Macchi. “and we absolutely agree – making mixtapes was a form of Art that flourished in an Era when Music truly mattered to everyone. Well, Music still truly matters to us, and to all our friends and fans – and this mixtape is our personal letter to them all!”
The “BELLADONNA MIXTAPE” is available now exclusively on Gumroad at this link: https://goo.gl/An87lT.
Upon purchase you will receive the album in mp3 format (2 mp3s, both 45′ long: one mp3 for the whole of side A, and one for the whole of side B: this is a true mixtape even in its mp3 incarnation!) for you to play while waiting for your handmade “BELLADONNA MIXTAPE” audiocassette to arrive in the post!
Italy, Rome based rock act LACEBLACK, led by singer/songwriter Luca Celletti (Eurosmith), are to release self-titled debut album, out in April, 2016! Just recently LACEBLACK unveiled the first teaser video for the song “Truth is On Our Face” from the album, watch it below.
Recorded in Rome and Los Angeles and co-produced by Luca Celletti and Dani Macchi (founder and producer of rock noir band BELLADONNA), the album features Grammy-nominated producer Alex Elena (Alice Smith, Bruce Dickinson, Avril Lavigne and many others) on drums and includes the cover of a song from the Brian De Palma cult movie “Phantom of the Paradise”, Paul Williams-penned ballad “Old Souls”.
In “LaceBlack” passion, romance and mystery are interlaced into an intensely sexual sound that fuses elements of soul, rock, r’n’b, blues, funk and even psychedelia with Luca’s fierce and fiery vocal delivery.
“LaceBlack” comes out in April 2016 on all digital stores worldwide. The album release party will be held on April 2nd, 2016 at Jailbreak Live Club in Rome – Italy. Facebook Event page HERE.
Furthermore LACEBLACK features as lead vocals in the song “My Madonna”, can be streamed below, written and produced by BELLADONNA’s guitarist Dani Macchi, song included in the soundtrack of the italian movie ”The Pills – Sempre meglio che lavorare” (2016).
LACEBLACK DEBUT ALBUM SPECIAL GUESTS:
Dani Macchi, co-producer and Guitar player, Bass player
Drums tracks played, recorded and produced by Alex Elena
Dave Sumner Guitar player on “Thruth is on our face”, “Closed in a Shell”, “Old souls”
Justine Mattera Vocal tracks duet on “Sexy Mother Tongue”
Arco Boomer Bass player on “Sexy Mother Tongue”
Massimiliano Annibaldi Viola on “ It’s all Gone”
Valerio Bulzoni Guitar lines on “A little more than too much” and “New Excess Desire”
Raoul Battilani Piano on “Anytime”
Francesco Santalucia Piano on “ Here He Comes” and “It’s all gone”
All Drums tracks recorded and produced at “M-15 WEST Studio , Los Angeles, California”
“Sexy Mother Tongue” Bass tracks recorded at “Famoso Studio, Deventer , Holland”
Justine Mattera Vocal tracks recorded at the “Ivorytears Music Works Studio, Somma Lombardo, VA, italy
All songs written by Luca Celletti except for “Old souls ( Paul Williams)” and “Anytime (Luca Celletti , Raoul Battilani)”
All Lyrics by Luca Celletti except for “Old Souls (Paul Williams)
All songs arranged and produced by Luca Celletti and Dani Macchi
The new single by Italian cult rock noir purveyors BELLADONNA have been used in a tv spot of blockbuster movie “MINIONS”. The tv spot is titled “Fifty Shades of Yellow”, and can be seen HERE.
The BELLADONNA song is “The God Below” and can be listened to here and purchased here.
Italian cult rock noir purveyors BELLADONNA have just launched a campaign on crowdfunding platform MUSICRAISER!! Titled “BELLADONNA: THE ORCHESTRAL ALBUM”, the campaign is aimed at raising funds for the live recording in a studio of an Album of 10 classic BELLADONNA songs with a CONCERT ORCHESTRA.
The list of rewards includes the CD and Vinyl copies of the resulting Album, a glossy photobook, the invite to attend the event, and even the actual guitar BELLADONNA‘s guitarist Dani Macchi will play in the recording and the top hat singer Luana Caraffa will wear at the event!
To celebrate the launch of their crowdfunding campaign BELLADONNA today release on SoundCloud as a FREE DOWNLOAD the track featured on the campaign’s presentation video, the acoustic ballad “Morpheus”, taken from their debut album “Metaphysical Attraction”! Download it HERE NOW!
BELLADONNA’s DANI MACCHI TO ENDORSE D’ADDARIO STRINGS
BELLADONNA’s guitarist Dani Macchi has just become an Official Endorser of D’ADDARIO strings!
Dani is elated by this deal: “D’Addario is one of the biggest and most legendary guitar strings manufacturers in the world so this is an awesome thrill and honor for me and for our band!…”
Check out Dani’s profile on Italian D’ADDARIO distributor BODE’s website, HERE.
BELLADONNA’s PRODUCTION COMPANY VISIONOIR MOVES TO THE UK
BELLADONNA’s own Production Company VISIONOIR LTD has now relocated to the UK and is actively seeking artists for its present and future artistic endeavours: “if you are making Music with total disregard for current trends and with absolute mad dedication and devotion, we want to hear from you”, says Visionoir’s MD Fabrizio Capanna. Visionoir can be reached at info@visionoir.net
Italian rock noir band BELLADONNA has checked in with the following announcement:
BELLADONNA are scheduled to play a very special showcase in London on the 26th of February. The Italian rock noir band will play The Borderline, one of the world’s most legendary music clubs that has played host to R.E.M., Jeff Healey, Oasis and countless other illustrious artists. This one-off show will support the release in all UK stores (distributed by Cargo, UK’s biggest indie record distributor) of BELLADONNA’s latest album “Shooting Dice With God”. Tickets will be on sale shortly, stay tuned for more info!!
BELLADONNA have also just released on SoundCloud as FREE DOWNLOAD a song out of “Shooting Dice With God”. The song is titled “If I Was God”, it’s an acoustic Tale of Loss and Love, and it’s available as free download here:
The band has also just published on YouTube an haunting video of the track, shot on location in Spain during a break of their recent tour there. You can watch the video below:
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 