Songs with other Strangers is the creative encounter between Marta Collica, Hugo Race (Sepiatone), Manuel Agnelli (leader of Afterhours, Italy’s most influential independent rock act), singer/songwriter Cesare Basile, John Parish, Stef Kamil Carlens (co-founder of the Belgian group dEUS and leader of Zita Swoon). The project snowballed rapidly from an idea of Marta, which was to present a one-off live set at the Zo Centro, Catania, comprising the songs of Parish, Basile, Collica and Race, all of whom had interracted on each others recent studio productions. Agnelli joined the event and a nice public response inspired Mescal management to propose an Italian tour in January 2005 and the project took wings with the arrival of Stef Kamil Carlens and the addition of the rock solid rhythm section of bassist Giorgia Poli (Micevice, Scisma, John Parish) and thedrummer/percussionist Jean-Marc Butty (PJ Harvey, Venus, John Parish). The band also features guests such as the cello player Roberta Castoldi (Morgan, Afterhours) and guitarist Marcello Caudullo who toured with SWOS last winter. Songs with Other Strangers has evolved into a concert free of conventional line-up restrictions in which the six singer/songwriters exchange roles and experiment with the arrangements of songs chosen from their own repertoires (and also with a shifting array of cover versions drawn from writers including Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and Michael Gira). The result is a musical journey through different moods, languages and songwriting approaches that explores the interzone of the artists’ backgrounds and personal visions.