B-Side Guys

Twenty-one grams—the legendary weight that bodies supposedly lose at the moment of death, the supposed measure of the soul itself. Sicilian singer-songwriter Giuseppe Cucè transforms this mysterious claim into a concept album exploring the invisible weight of human experience. 21 grammi, released on TRP Vibes and distributed by EGEA Music, travels between body and spirit, examining the wounds of living alongside the beauty of feeling alive. Recorded at TRP Studios in Catania and produced by Riccardo Samperi, with mastering by Pietro Caramelli and Claudio Giussani at Energy Mastering in Milan, the album unfolds across eleven tracks that function as chapters in a singular narrative documenting an soul in transit—naked, vulnerable, authentic.

Following his previous albums La mela e il serpente (2009) and Attraversando Saturno (2017), Cucè returns with his most mature and conceptual work, constructing a musical universe where every note carries weight like a fragment of soul. His visceral, cinematographic songwriting builds what he describes as an interior film, alternating intimate atmospheres with choral surges, nocturnal visions with glimpses of hope. The production creates sonic space where acoustic and electronic elements, sacred and profane, light and shadow coexist harmoniously. Warm contemporary sounds blend guitars and piano with light percussion, synthetic strings, and suspended voices, creating emotional equilibrium that evokes auteur cinema’s breathing rhythms.

“È tutto così vero” opens the journey with visceral sensuality, establishing the album’s commitment to embodied experience rather than abstract spirituality. The track’s title—”It’s all so real”—announces intention to engage flesh and spirit simultaneously, refusing the false division between body and soul that Western philosophy often imposes. The Spanish version “El mundo es verdadero” appears later in the tracklist, extending the album’s reach beyond Italian-speaking audiences while maintaining thematic consistency.

“Dimmi cosa vuoi” and “Fragile equilibrio” continue building the album’s mosaic structure, each song functioning as what Cucè calls “quadri”—paintings or scenes in a larger cinematic composition. “Fragile equilibrio” particularly embodies the album’s sweet melancholy, documenting how balance requires acknowledging fragility rather than pretending strength. The track demonstrates Cucè’s ability to unite lyricism with truth, poetry with unflinching observation.

“La mia Dea” and “Di estate non si muore” explore desire and mortality from contrasting angles—one addressing the divine feminine, the other insisting that “in summer one does not die,” as if season could protect against death’s inevitability. These tracks showcase the TRP Studio Orchestra’s contributions, with first violinist Giovanni Cucuccio, second violinist Marcello Spina, violist Gaetano Adorno, and cellist Alessandro Longo under the direction of Giuseppe Furnari adding orchestral depth that elevates folk-based songwriting into something more expansive.

“Ventuno” arrives as the album’s conceptual heart, the twenty-one grams made explicit. This track represents the emotional core of 21 grammi, translating the album’s central metaphor into song. Cucè sings humanity in its entirety without filters—love, flesh, faith, loss, rebirth—every element compressed into those twenty-one symbolic grams. The song becomes a suspended tone, as the press materials describe it, capturing the weight of everything that cannot be measured: emotions, memories, faith, losses, loves that leave their mark. As Cucè explains: “Within those twenty-one grams there is everything: what we have loved, what we have lost, and what still keeps us alive.”

“Tutto quello che vuoi” and “Cuore d’inverno” extend the journey through seasons and desires, the latter’s “heart of winter” providing contemplative quiet after the album’s more intense emotional territories. Anthony Panebianco’s Hammond organ work here adds particular warmth, while Riccardo Samperi’s guitar and the piano work of Claudio Allia and Giuseppe Furnari create textural variety that prevents the album from becoming sonically monolithic despite its thematic consistency.

“Una notte infinita” documents the infinite night, that space between sunset and sunrise where time suspends and consciousness shifts. The track benefits from Alberto Fidone’s bass, Enzo Di Vita’s drums, and Gionata Colaprisca’s percussion creating rhythmic foundation while Pat Legato’s programming percussion and keyboards add contemporary electronic elements. The backing vocals of Lilla Costarelli and Teresa Raneri provide choral depth, suggesting community even in solitary night spaces.

The horn section—Marcello Leanza on tenor sax and flute, Nando Sorbello on trombone, Marco Bella on alto sax, Francesco Bella on trumpet—adds jazz-inflected soul to arrangements that could otherwise lean too heavily into folk territory. These brass voices prevent the album from becoming overly precious or delicate, introducing necessary grit and swing that keeps the spirituality grounded in earthly pleasure.

“El mundo es verdadero” closes the album in its Latin version, circling back to the visceral sensuality of the opening “È tutto così vero.” By ending with the Spanish-language variant, Cucè extends the album’s reach beyond Italian borders while emphasizing that truth—”verdadero,” “vero”—remains constant across linguistic boundaries. The choice to close with this translation rather than new material reinforces the album’s cyclical structure, suggesting that the journey through twenty-one grams doesn’t conclude with resolution but with renewed recognition of reality’s persistent weight.

The album’s visual aesthetic, captured in Luca Guarneri’s photography and Gianluca Scalia’s Kemedia-produced video clips, with total look by Chiara Samperi, extends the cinematic approach beyond audio into complete artistic vision. Every element serves the larger concept—this is an album designed to be experienced as unified work rather than collection of disconnected songs.

What Cucè accomplishes with 21 grammi is the transformation of spiritual speculation into tangible artistic statement. The twenty-one grams become symbolic measure of all that resists measurement—the invisible value of human experiences that nonetheless leave weight in the world. His songwriting treats the soul not as abstract concept but as lived reality, something that gains substance through love, loss, memory, and the daily work of staying alive despite accumulated grief.

For an artist returning eight years after his previous album, 21 grammi demonstrates patient artistic development rather than rushed productivity. Cucè clearly spent those years refining his vision, building the conceptual framework that allows eleven songs to function as chapters in singular narrative. The result feels both intensely personal and broadly accessible, specific to Cucè’s Sicilian perspective while addressing concerns that transcend regional boundaries.

The album’s Italian-language core with Spanish-language inclusion suggests artist comfortable with his cultural identity while reaching beyond it, understanding that human concerns translate even when specific words don’t. Twenty-one grams weighs the same in any language, and the soul’s burden doesn’t require translation. Cucè has created what he describes as a path for the soul in transit, music for anyone wrestling with the weight of being alive, the burden and gift of consciousness that those twenty-one grams supposedly represent.