The Project -
Places you had to leave when you wanted to stay, sudden distractions, belonging without necessarily joining, the imaginative fantasies of people and things, the five senses and music, going with emotions without worrying about what's true, blue and white, turquoise and green, the sensation of coming back and going away again, sadness without melancholy, letting go as the only intelligent way to happiness, attachment and detachment, dance as flight, a painting by Chagall, the sea, the "Baia di Lucia e Rosa" on the isle of Ponza. And the magical harmony that every so often inexplicably weaves its way around all of this, giving love a meaning.
The Mystic Diversions project is the result of the musical sensibility of Francesko, a musician and composer from Florence, who is well-known for his past successes under the stage-name of Mike Francis.
What started out as a World Music project became a fascinating journey into Ambient and Lounge, with audible influences from ethnic, latin and the world of RnB and Soul, all filtered through the taste and sensitivity of Francesko and the People he invited aboard.
"Looking at people and places from a distance, because travelling is not always possible, though we are living in a very small world, where we all act differently but not that differently. And if I was living in another town, anywhere else, my life would have been different but not that different, I would do different things but not that different, I would have married someone else, different, but not that different. Any place on this world could have been my home place. That's why I feel like I must protect it. These things and others (different, but not that different from anyone else's thoughts) were in my mind while writing "From the Distance".
(Francesko, Ponza, summer 2005)
