E la felicità è una bandiera a mezz’aria
senza vento
It is the wind that lifts a flag and sets it dancing; without it, the cloth hangs limp. So it is with happiness: hope and enthusiasm catch the wind, lending our lives direction and momentum. When that force ebbs, tomorrow can seem sealed off, and the ideals we once held dear grow harder to pass on. For a parent watching another generation come of age amid disappointment, the question cuts close: how do you teach a child to believe in tomorrow when your own faith has begun to waver?
Italian guitarist, composer, and art historian Riccardo Prencipe considers that uneasy inheritance on Senza Vento, the latest single from his project Corde Oblique. Featuring Italian new wave and art-rock singer Andrea Chimenti, the song takes its title from the Italian for “Without Wind.” It is the second single from Corde Oblique’s tenth album, All’ombra dei fanciulli in fiore, due November 27, 2026, through Dark Vinyl Records.
Gentle acoustic strumming opens the song with the intimacy of someone playing a few feet away. Chimenti’s Italian delivery has a supple, conversational warmth, while Edo Notarloberti’s violin extends the melody in long, expressive phrases. His voice meets Rita Saviano’s backing vocals with an affection that gives the arrangement a romantic lift; beneath them, percussion lands in broad, resonant strokes. The music swells with feeling while retaining the closeness of a folk song passed between people who know each other well.
“The absence of wind means the absence of momentum and forward drive,” explains Prencipe. “The lack of enthusiasm, the loss of idealism and the nihilism of the younger generation inspired these ideas, prompting me to translate this vacuum into music.”
The lyrics begin with a daughter sleeping among colours while a younger generation runs outside, beyond the reach of the speaker’s appeals. Pollen turns from fleshy gold to white ash; happiness hangs like a flag waiting for a breeze. Prencipe’s “spool of abandonment” invokes Freud’s Fort-Da game, in which a child rehearses departure and return, while the tree of Anagni draws on the city’s richly coloured crypt. Each image measures the distance between what can be remembered and what can be held.
That distance becomes especially affecting when Prencipe turns towards his father. In the repeated appeals to breathe and grow older together, a whole history of companionship is reduced to the most essential physical act. The song makes room for the parent who watches a child grow away from them, and the adult child who still wants another afternoon with their father. By its closing lines, tenderness has begun to return, and loneliness, wearing a clown’s smile, can no longer maintain its bluff.
The accompanying video places Chimenti’s face and microphone against a black field, allowing his expressions to carry much of the emotional weight. Black-and-white views of a monumental Christ statue, its arms extended above steep hills and the sea, interrupt the performance. The monument is repeatedly superimposed over the singer’s face, bringing the vast stone figure into the scale of a human close-up. Brief glimpses of a mixing desk and a guitarist at work return the film to the practical business of making music. Between the coastal panoramas and those quiet studio scenes, the song’s thoughts about memory and inheritance acquire a tangible setting.
Watch the video for Senza Vento, featuring Andrea Chimenti, below:
Corde Olblique’s forthcoming album All’ombra dei fanciulli in fiore bears a title that nods to Marcel Proust, placing parenthood within a wider consideration of time and remembrance. Dedicated to the memory of Raffaele Prencipe and the father and son’s wanderings across the Phlegraean Fields, All’ombra dei fanciulli in fiore brings together twelve tracks spanning neofolk and post-rock. Chimenti appears on three songs, while actress Maddalena Crippa contributes to Senza Ego.
Massimo Aluzzi recorded the album at Naples’ Splash Studio and mixed it there with Andrea Cutillo; Alex Wharton handled mastering at London’s Abbey Road Studios. Its physical edition includes a booklet with photographs taken by Raffaele Prencipe during the 1980s, depicting Pozzuoli and the Phlegraean Fields, with artwork and concept design by Gianni Caldararo. A father’s way of looking becomes something his son can place in another person’s hands.
Listen to Senza Vento below and pre-order All’ombra dei fanciulli in fiore here.
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