Interview – I'M NOT A BLONDE – “11” The art of being together is also chaos and freedom

Ten years after “Introducing I'm Not a Blonde”, the I'm Not a Blonde duo, formed by Chiara Castello and Camilla Benedini, returns with “11 (The Art of Being a Couple)”, a record that dismantles and recomposes the sentimental framework of electropop through the filter of sentimental and artistic relationships.

Eleven tracks that move between art pop, oblique electronics and more instinctive openings, letting the Italian language enter decisively for the first time.

A work that does not seek formal perfection, but a form of truth within the chaos of influences, desires and contradictions.

Conceptually, “11 (The Art of Being a Couple)” tells the complexity of love without stereotypes, with the naturalness of those who experience their bond every day as a discovery.
It's a record that talks about two people, but also about anyone who has loved, lost, found themselves next to someone else.

We met them and they told us about the freedom they found after years of superstructures, the relationship between aesthetics and music, the collaboration with Rachele Bastreghi and an Italian electro-pop scene that, finally, seems to be sprouting connections and identities again outside the logic of the mainstream.

INTERVIEW

Let's start from the beginning. I re-listened to 2016's “Introducing I'm Not a Blonde” before hearing this new album. What has changed in these ten years?

Camilla Benedini: What happens when ten years of life pass is over. We set out without a specific destination, almost without deciding what type of music to make. At the beginning we had three instruments: a guitar, a synth and a loop station. That instrumental limitation gave us a specific direction in the writing. Then life changed, we changed and we decided not to limit ourselves so much anymore.

Paradoxically, however, in this album we felt freer than in some previous works. There was a period in which we were a bit stuck in the idea of ​​the “most pop song” or “less pop”. Here, however, we didn't care and experimented much more.

Chiara Castello: “Introducing I'm Not a Blonde” was born in a totally instinctive way. Then, as we grow up, things get more complicated. Here comes rationality, thought, stratification.
It's inevitable. After years of writing and playing without stopping, we felt the need for a break.

By removing some of the superstructure, I think a certain initial simplicity has returned. A spontaneity that perhaps was lost in the middle.

In fact, the new album is much more produced than the beginning, but it maintains a kind of very direct emotional urgency.

Chiara: Yes, perhaps because we stopped wanting to control everything. This album also accepts its contradictions.

There is also a curious return of the numbers. In the past you had “21”, now it's 11. Does numerology play a role in your imagination?

Camilla: We are certainly interested in the use of symbols. Numbers, graphic signs, elements that represent concepts or emotions. It's something that often comes back to our aesthetics.

Chiara: In this case 11 was born above all from the idea of ​​one plus one, therefore from the couple. From the relationship between two people who share life and creativity.
The title comes from a simple and overturned idea. We often think of love as a sum – 1+1=2, a fusion that erases boundaries. In “11” that sum becomes a symbol: 1+1=11, two complete individuals who choose to walk side by side every day. Not to merge, but to support itself, to reflect itself without losing shape.”

The visual aesthetic in your project seems almost as important as the music.

Camilla: I am an architect and Chiara studied interior design, so the aesthetic component is inevitable. For me pop has always been this: music, image, video, graphics, way of dressing. I can't separate the two things.

Chiara: Many of my references are in pop art, precisely because of that continuous dialogue between visual art and music. Even when we argue among ourselves, the relationship between image and sound remains central.

After all, the title “The Art of Being a Couple” also closes this circle.

Chiara: Yes, even if “art” here is understood more as a craft, as a daily practice.

Rachele Bastreghi also appears on the album. What was it like opening up your world to a third person?

Camilla: It was an honor. We involved her as an interpreter. We had met thanks to Mario Conte, who produced the album with us and who had already worked with her. We had also made a remix of one of his songs.

Chiara: Italian has become much more present in this album than in the past. I have always written mainly in English, but here I felt the need to open up a new language.

Rachele has become a sort of bridge. In “Scegli Me” the English begins to dialogue with the Italian and she accompanies this very passage.

The next feat. will it be with “Miley Cyrus”? Why this piece?

Camilla: In fact it was also the most difficult to accept. At one point we didn't even know whether to include it on the album.

Chiara: But I'm Not a Blonde has always had these crazy moments. There are my references to American pop in there and I wanted to let them in without shame.

In the lyrics I mention “Wrecking Ball” because the song talks about an overwhelming relationship. There's a precise meaning behind that pop reference.

How do you see the Italian electro-pop scene today?

Camilla: There are many interesting artists. There is a very fertile subsoil.

Chiara: Yes, and they are using Italian in a new way, more rhythmic, closer to the musicality of English. One of the first to have opened that path, in my opinion, was Cosmo.

Last thing: what are you listening to these days?

Chiara: I'm listening to Harry Styles. I like! Then during the making of the album I listened to a lot of Fever Ray.
That whole Swedish electro-art-pop scene was important for us.

Camilla: Also Chilly Gonzales, for the way she mixes different languages. In Italy, however, I really liked the work of Si! Boom! Voila! They have something surreal and alienating that I find very interesting.

LISTEN TO THE RECORD

To Fall
Choose Me
Hip Hop in the Fog
A Place to Call Home
Not Anymore
Pony
This language
Like Miley Cyrus Says
The Island
Circe
Fixed Fixed

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