The Girls From Utopia
Tengo na minchia tanta (F. Zappa)

“The Girls from Utopia” is a project conceived and formed by the violinist Anais Drago and the double bass player Valentina Ciardelli. They both are Italians but one lives at home in Italy and the other lives in the United Kingdom. They’ve never met personally but their shared passion for Frank Zappa led to them meeting in the virtual world.

Both musicians have years of transcriptions and arrangements of the American master in their background. They have always admired not only his undisputed musical qualities but also his philosophy.

It was the last few months, marked by the pandemic, that made it possible to lay the foundations for imagining an extravagant duo. The debut piece is an arrangement of Zappa’s ‘Tengo na minchia tanta’, arranged by Anais Drago and recorded by the two musicians from distance.

The choice of the song underlines the irreverent irony of Zappa (‘Tengo na minchia tanta’ can be roughly translated in english as ‘I got a dick this big’), and the version of the duo exasperates the oxymoron generated by the fact that the explicit lyrics are sung by two females!

The video, deliberately ironic, was edited by Valentina Ciardelli. Other arrangements (and also original songs) will follow in the coming months with the aim of bringing the duo live as soon as possible.