After spending several years working with singer-songwriters, jazz players and improvisers, co-writing songs in different languages and pondering the meaning of either writing or improvising music, Marco Giongrandi -Sardinian by roots, a Milanese by birth, and a “Brusseleir” by choice – has now started a new project about his own songs. They’re in English, they’re about what he loves and fights and they might have a touch of Nick Drake, Julia Holter, Daniel Rossen.
Marco Giongrandi, a jazz graduate of the conservatories of Brussels and Milan, is a guitarist and banjoist in various international bands: Hendrik Lasure Warm Bad, Dear Uncle Lennie, Martha Moore, Kettle of Kites, ANK among others
With When Birds Call in the Darkness, Marco Giongrandi returns with a new LP that blends heartfelt simplicity with the endless layering of faces, images, and memories. The result is an album that feels tender, welcoming, and deeply human. Across eight tracks, Giongrandi traces a path that begins with poetic, introspective songwriting and evolves through a wide range of moods and emotions – all shaped into a sound that’s mature, balanced, and meticulously refined.
The songs unfold at an unhurried pace, exploring human connections (Maria and the Sea, Long Wait), places (Drawings, Graveyard), and fleeting thoughts (We’ll Be Leaves). When Birds Call in the Darkness is a record that stays close to the listener, resonating with warmth, clarity, and quiet depth.
The album When Birds Call in the Darkness is composed of eight songs. Each tune represents a story as well as a landscape. The birds, the sea, the mountains, the clouds, home, the apartment of an unknown lover, and again, leaves, drawings, the wind, a poured tea, some doors and a book become both frames and main characters of the album. Within and together with these frames, stories of ordinary life and relationships unfold. Each song starts with a dialogue, whether with another person or the narrator themself, and sometimes develops into raising questions about broader themes. As for the stories, the music was conceived to be as simple and acoustic as possible, recorded with four instruments in the same room. It has then found its way to match the inherent complexity of ordinary life and those natural
landscapes that dwell between day and night: When Birds Call in the Darkness.
- Marco Giongrandi – Lead vocals, guitars, banjo
- Hendrik Lasure – guitars, backing vocals, piano and keys
- Kobe Boon – bass, voice
- Théo Lanau – drums