The artist's revenge: singer-songwriter releases an EP of 5 completely silent tracks

We met Stefano Esposito, Neapolitan singer-songwriter founder of Hesitant Ballad, a rock band that depopulated in the indie-MySpace undergrowth a few years ago.

Q: On June 6th, out of the blue, Hesitant Ballad release an EP and present it on their social networks in a vague way...
The 5 tracks, of variable length, all have a common denominator: they are completely silent tracks, ie tracks of 3 or 4 minutes of total silence… Why did you choose to do this?

A: It is a gesture that arises first of all as a provocation: people's attention is increasingly scarce and it is possible to find less and less time to be available to perform what can be a very simple action like listening to a song... So yeah, it's definitely a provocation.

Q: The EP is called "I Am Tired Of Not Being Heard"...

A: Exactly, it is a denunciation of the indifference of the average listener. Each track is named after a part of the title, and the first track, "I Am", is inspired by a work by Garau.

D: What inspired you was the invisible sculpture "I Am" by Salvatore Garau ...

A: Paradoxically, despite being invisible, Garau's work is very tangible and has a power of its own, precisely because, as he himself says, the space of the I Am is an energy that can be "filled" in any way, because it's intangible...
Then I realized that even a record made entirely of silence, and yet also of space, that is, of temporal duration - because these are tracks that have a duration - can be used as a parenthesis of intangible and inaudible energy that can be filled as we want, just like Garau's "I Am" space.

Q: On the album webpage, on BandCamp, you wrote "Silence is the matrix of everything, the foundation on which" every sound "rests, what do you mean by these words?

A: I mean just that: without silence, any sound could not find a voice and paradoxically it could not have the space to express itself, so silence is truly the basis of all acoustic expression. Silence is also an excellent opportunity to reconnect with oneself, tap into one's innate creativity, and turn off that mental noise that is favored and stimulated by the frenetic and hyper-connected world in which we find ourselves immersed. From the less philosophical point of view, and therefore from the perspective of the gesture of denunciation, I have simply returned a silence to the noise, giving the distracted listeners the opportunity to regain their attention through amazement. But in any case, these are tracks that the listeners can "fill in" as they want.

Q: In short, a silence where everyone can put what they want...

A: Exactly, do what you like, and in this "do what you like" there is also the denunciation: since you no longer have the attention to devote yourself to listening to a 3-minute song, I give you a silence that you can fill as you like, as long as you realize that it is silence! In fact, on social media this also happens: many people give you their like distractedly, without even realizing what they are giving their like to! Many people who follow me, in fact, only realized later that it was an empty album! I even had to tell others! [laughs]. So my finding on the lack of attention was fully confirmed!

Q: And how did people react to this?

A: There were those who laughed at it and those who called me genius... mine, however, was only a provocation and, paradoxically, a focus on the lack of attention and a restitution of silence to a mental noise that now overflows into our lives and fills them with useless things...

Q: A kind of artist's revenge ...

A: Revenge is a strong word [laughter], but in a sense yes: it is the artist's revenge in the face of the indifference and unavailability of the average listener. "You don't listen to me and so here's a nice album made of silence!".

Q: Going back to more canonical things, when will it be possible to hear new material…? played material, I mean.

A: We'll be releasing a few more singles or even a canonical EP soon to rebalance this sort of joke we played on listeners!

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To "listen" to I Am Tired Of Not Being Heard to click HERE