Performing as Sans Soucis, Italo-Congolese musician Guilia Grispino creates melodic, fluid music infused with intimacy and vulnerability. On their latest album, Circumnavigating Georgia, they soundtrack their own coming-of-age — beginning and ending at their grandparents’ house in Italy and exploring themes of self-growth, familial histories and lived experiences via a collection of 12 danceable, bilingual songs.
Below, we catch up with the artist to explore their development so far as an artist and what this latest body of work means to them.
Hi! How long have you been making music for and how was your sound evolved?
I’ve been making music since 2016. That’s the year I started writing my own songs, in my room, with my guitar and a scrappy recording set up. It’s always been a very intimate and therapeutic experience to me.
At the very beginning of my writing and production journey, I would rely a lot on my guitar compositions and vocal arrangements, definitely my first love, because that was what I could technically do and I wanted to honour my learning path.
I organically bought more gear in order to be able to incorporate diverse production elements into my canvases. Getting music libraries from other producers, collaborating with people and finally moving into my own studio, shared with some of my closest friends (a source of huge inspiration) is something I look at with immense gratitude and pride.
I always had quite an eclectic taste. I remember being mind blown by the acid punk sounds of Tame Impala, feeling nostalgic of noughties RnB and Italian classic songwriters, loving orchestration by Henry Mancini, and being drawn to electronic leaning music from Little Dragon, as well as genre-defying artists such as Solange, Kendrick Lamar, Rosalia, whose voice moves me to the core. I also adore introspective, carefully crafted songwriting, that as soon as you feel comfortable enough, it breaks a rule or two. Joni Mitchel is surely a master in this art.
I guess right now my sound is still in constant evolution. I try to learn things I love. In life I really struggle with understanding my emotions, so I associate certain music, genres and songs to specific emotions, moods and memories. That’s how I’ve decided to produce Circumnavigating Georgia.
How do you approach crafting lyrics?
Lyrics are really important for me, and normally inform the production of a song. I try to write a song almost entirely before I commit to any kind of production.
I like to get to the bottom of things and one of the aspects I love the most about writing lyrics is that it allows me to hone a language that I’m not always able to carve out in life. I get to spend time thinking about feelings and experiences for long enough to be able to understand them and vocalise them with my own words, which I think it is something very difficult to achieve within the constraints of the society I live in.
When I write lyrics, I always have my notepad with me. I love writing on a piece of paper with a gel pen, and having some Palo Santo around. Alternatively, I probably just play guitar and start recording what I do with my phone, while I frantically transcribe words.
How does your identity inform your music?
I guess my identity is the reason why I decided to do music. Being Black and queer is something I struggled to accept my whole life.
I wasn’t born thinking I was any different from anyone else, but the world taught me that in fact, the agenda to marginalise groups of people that resonate with this experience is rooted in the history of this part of the world and it affected me in ways I wasn’t able to uncover up until recently.
My music is now the way I build a world in which I can exist and I can express my truth without fear. It is a process, which means I need to be patient and kind to myself, but it allowed me to feel more liberated and decolonised when I don’t wear my artist hat.
What does your latest body of work represent to you?
It was such a transformative experience for me. I call it my “erotic teacher”, to quote one of my biggest inspirations, Audre Lorde.
Circumnavigating Georgia represents acceptance, compassion, exploration, and gratefulness to the life I lived for a long time. A life that was a mix between the seed of who I am and a shield I had to build to protect myself from the harm of a patriarchal and systemically racist society.
Doing something that sits within the genre of pop/alt-pop, it also challenged the idea of pop stardom as the pinnacle of the mainstream music industry. What does it really mean?
This album destroyed some of the thickest survival mechanisms I held onto, but made space for real joy and a more grounding way to live life, as well as more awareness of the world around me and what I can do to be of service to my community. It will forever be a loving letter to the memory of that human being that survived.
What’s next for you?
I’m trying to enjoy this new phase of my life and I’m curious about where it will lead me personally and professionally. I’m also very excited to finally tour this album.
