Jenny Sorrenti

Italian prog singer Jenny Sorrenti returns with a bold new chapter of a project that began over 50 years ago.

In the early 70s, Jenny Sorrenti’s band Saint Just carved out a niche in Italy’s progressive rock landscape with an ethereal fusion of folk, psychedelia and mysticism that made their two albums – 'Saint Just' (1973) and 1974’s 'La Casa del Lago' – valued artefacts among collectors and fans alike. Half a century on, Sorrenti has reawakened that spirit with 'Néos Saint Just', an album that looks forward rather than back.

“Those first albums gave me so much,” she reflects. “Néos Saint Just' doesn’t revoke them; it takes me in another direction, with another language.” The title itself comes from the Greek for “new,” and fittingly the music embraces experimentation and introspection in equal measure. Working closely with producer and sonic alchemist Tullio Angelini, here Sorrenti explores innovative textures, her voice as an instrument, and blending ritual atmospherics with existential themes.

Many of the songs took shape in the surroundings of Duino Castle near the port of Trieste in the northeastern corner of Italy, an area once favoured by the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. “Almost the entire gestation of the album was born in those contemplative places,” she recalls, “so full of charm and medieval atmospheres.” The results are dreamlike and free flowing, floating somewhere between song and soundscape. “There are no rules,” she insists. “Everything that comes out of this album happens because, at that moment, it was meant to happen.”

For the first time, Sorrenti sings mostly in English, a heartfelt gesture to her Welsh-born mother. “I’ve sung in many languages, but never English,” she says. “If you have your own sound, you can sing in any language and still have the same intensity.” That sound is enriched by a cast of adventurous collaborators including electronics sound designer Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner, drummer Kenny Wollesen, multi-instrumentalists Clive Bell and Alessandro Pizzin, Italian pianist Roberto Scarpa and English violinist Sylvia Hallett, who all contribute to the album’s hypnotic textures.

At its core, 'Néos Saint Just' remains a deeply personal project that Sorrenti views as a meditation on the splendour that runs through life, art, and nature.

“We like to think whoever listens can meditate on beauty,” says Sorrenti. “The kind of beauty that’s everywhere – in a note, a sound, and even in human beings – if you know how to hear it.”

Julian Marszalek

Website: Néos Saint Just | Jenny Sorrenti & Tullio Angelini | Néos Saint Just