Biography
Italian vocalist and songwriter Marta Del Grandi spent the 2010s focused chiefly on jazz performance before shifting toward a style of compositional art pop shaped by the American West Coast sound of the 1960s, exotica textures, and the film scores of Ennio Morricone and David Lynch. Drawing on lyrics drawn from equally unconventional, frequently mythic sources, she issued her first full-length pop statement, the intimate Until We Fossilize, in 2021 and then ventured further into more introspective territory with Selva two years later.
Born in Italy, Del Grandi had established herself as a jazz singer living in Ghent, Belgium, when her quartet—completed by Claudio Phan, Emanuele Serra, and Marco Giongrandi—appeared on the 2012 Musica Jazz compilation Porsche Live: Giovani e Jazz 2011. Within the improvisational collective Mòs Ensemble, founded by Kobe Boon, she contributed vocals to the self-released Limbs in 2019, though by then she had already begun developing solo work that moved away from her jazz-based collaborative history.
She joined the roster of indie label Fire Records for her solo debut, Until We Fossilize, which surfaced in November 2021. Self-produced in Italy and built from orchestral and electronic components, the album included drums and synths by Shahzad Ismaily, who also handled mixing from Brooklyn. Its title, prompted by extensive travel during the late 2010s, alluded to legends attached to marine fossils found at the summit of the Himalayas. The follow-up, Selva, was tracked in Ghent and co-produced by Bert Vliegen (Sophia, Whispering Sons); it presented a marginally more robust, bass-forward palette while retaining delicate detail and reached listeners via Fire Records in October 2023.
Born in Italy, Del Grandi had established herself as a jazz singer living in Ghent, Belgium, when her quartet—completed by Claudio Phan, Emanuele Serra, and Marco Giongrandi—appeared on the 2012 Musica Jazz compilation Porsche Live: Giovani e Jazz 2011. Within the improvisational collective Mòs Ensemble, founded by Kobe Boon, she contributed vocals to the self-released Limbs in 2019, though by then she had already begun developing solo work that moved away from her jazz-based collaborative history.
She joined the roster of indie label Fire Records for her solo debut, Until We Fossilize, which surfaced in November 2021. Self-produced in Italy and built from orchestral and electronic components, the album included drums and synths by Shahzad Ismaily, who also handled mixing from Brooklyn. Its title, prompted by extensive travel during the late 2010s, alluded to legends attached to marine fossils found at the summit of the Himalayas. The follow-up, Selva, was tracked in Ghent and co-produced by Bert Vliegen (Sophia, Whispering Sons); it presented a marginally more robust, bass-forward palette while retaining delicate detail and reached listeners via Fire Records in October 2023.
Albums
Singles
