"It's boring to be perfect": interview with Coma_Cose

Coma_Cose have found great success throughout Italy during their career, yet their music sounds different for those who are or have been young in Milan in recent years. In their songs, the daily life of the city feels alive and neighborhoods such as Ticinese or Paolo Sarpi become emotional sets for stories of love, joy, nostalgia and anger. Together, Fausto Zanardelli and Francesca Mesiano celebrated an off-beat and real side of Milan, distancing themselves from the vacuous triumphalisms of fashion and design, and going to seek the beauty of life in the parks of Milan, in Via Gola, on the trains of Centrale and on the banks of the Naviglio. 

On the occasion of the release of their new album called Nostralgia, released next Friday, April 16, we interviewed the Coma_Cose to let us tell the story of "their" Milan.

Since the beginning of your career, you have been the singers of a different and romantic Milan, far from the stereotypes of nightlife and fashion. What is the sentimental geography of "your" Milan and what are its main places?

Surely the part that attracts us the most about Milan is the less "shimmering". Our places of the heart are clearly Corso di Porta Ticinese, to which we dedicated the name of our first EP, Inverno Ticinese; Paolo Sarpi where the studio where we recorded Hype Aura and the Pavese ship where we began to live together were located. They are three areas with very different souls but have in common a more punk approach, more free-flowing than more glossy areas of the city. We certainly sang a romantic Milan since they spoke indirectly also about our relationship but above all we told Milan with the eyes of those who arrive with so much desire, so much hunger. Maybe that was the key to avoiding stereotypes.

Did the city and its indie scene inspire your aesthetic? And, above all, is there a "Milanese" aesthetic for you?

In Milan, there is a tendency to code everything as urban and perhaps this word has been so abused that it has been emptied of its meaning. Surely Milan is a city where aesthetics becomes an integral part of the message: the heritage and present of fashion, of design, would make it impossible to imagine it differently. Having said that, I think that what characterizes Milan more than an urban aesthetic language is a great sensitivity to the novelties that come from Europe and the world. From this point of view, we believe that this city is still really a place of novelty; a place where aesthetics is not an end in itself but an alphabet to use to punctuate what you want to say.

How has the style of young Milanese evolved over time? Has yours evolved too?

We have evolved a lot over time; at first, we were essential, almost austere. The first video that caught the attention of the public, that of Anima Lattina was a bit the manifesto of this search for essentiality. We dressed in dark in a gigantic room empty and completely white. Surely we are still fascinating today by that somewhat Soviet aesthetic, à-la-East Berlin, we always intrigue that imaginary and we often play on social media as well. Over time we have clearly evolved and in Sanremo thanks to the collaboration with our stylist Giorgia Cantarini and the dresses of MSGM we have learned to express ourselves more and better through the choice of our outfits. In Sanremo, we wanted to tell our inner fire and we played a lot with red, the colour of flames.

What was the pre-Expo hipster Milan like when American Apparel was still open in Colonne? And what happened to that indie aesthetic?

I'd say it's evolved and I'm not saying it with regret. The whole hipster world has to feed on new ideas and it's good that people younger than us have come. We don't feel boomer yet but certainly, 10 years ago we felt more identitarian and representative with our aesthetic choices. Today surely our aesthetic taste has become more familiar and mainstream and this also pleases us, it is normal for the new contaminates and mix with tradition.

A new album, a new chapter. How have today's Coma_Cose changed compared to those of Inverno Ticinese?

Very much! Once from a musical point of view, we were much more related to the structure in which I raped and Francesca sang, today we learned to mix much more. The themes have also changed, if once we took snapshots of what was happening to us today we can also look back a little and for this reason, our album is called Nostralgia. What has remained the same is the hunger that drives us; we chose to take care of our passion for music by supporting each other when it seemed that we should give up the dream. Ours was a story of presence and mutual presence, we went from working together as clerks in a bag shop to the Ariston stage. When you see up close the idea of having to give up your greatest passion but you manage to save yourself thanks to love you necessarily preserve that sparks that every day makes you want to do more and more!