In somber times, band Phoenix revels in Italian fantasy

In the four years since Phoenix last released an album, much has looked bleak -- brutal war and a refugee crisis, angry politics and attacks in the band's home of Paris. But to the rockers' own surprise, the sound that emerged over two and a half years of writing was unfailingly happy, whirling with disco-inspired beats and a youthful exuberance that evokes summer vacations. "Ti Amo," Phoenix's sixth studio album which comes out June 9, became a love affair with Italy -- or at least a romanticized version of the country defined by gelato, masquerade balls and sensual nights. The Italian connection came naturally. Lead singer Thomas Mars married his wife, director Sofia Coppola, in her ancestral town in Italy, while guitarists and brothers Laurent Brancowitz and Christian Mazzalai are half Italian. "For us, Italy is our childhood and our father, but more so it's Italy as a fantasy where life is sweet and things are beautiful," Brancowitz told AFP in New York, reflecting calmly on the imagery. As Brancowitz was about to describe the women, Mazzalai interjected with his own Italian nostalgia: "It's where the nights are long and hot." Brancowitz continued, laughing: "And the men are elegant and dignified. So, basically, something that doesn't really exist." Working on the album in Paris at La Gaiete Lyrique, the theater converted into an artist hub, Phoenix kept reveling in Italian delights even as the city beneath was under lockdown following the November 2015 assault. "I think the tensions forced us subconsciously to do this kind of music," Brancowitz said. "At the time we were almost ashamed to be making such carefree music. But finally we realized that perhaps this is our role in the human comedy, to create a little space of innocence in a guilty world, a world of sin," he said, chuckling at his own hyperbole. - 'We embrace our weirdness'- The album opens with the suave, keyboard-driven vibrance of 1980s synthpop on "J-Boy" before showing shades of Italian pop with dominating vocals on tracks such as infectious "Fior di Latte." On the title track of "Ti Amo," which means "I Love You" in Italian, Mars sings of wooing a woman at the end of a day in the sunshine. "I'll be standing by the jukebox / Champagne or Prosecco?" sings Mars, his smooth voice as ever not betraying an accent in English. "I was playing classics by the Buzzcocks, Battiato and Lucio," he sings, conflating Italian singing greats with the British punk band. Brancowitz said the mix of influences -- which might seem unusual in the English-language rock circles in which Phoenix often finds itself classified -- was second-nature for musicians from France. "The more we get on with life, the more that we realize that this is our strength, to have a vision of the world that's a little bit different," said Brancowitz, 43. "We embrace our weirdness. That's our strategy," he said. Phoenix emerged in France's alternative scene in the 1990s but found international success suddenly a decade later with "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix." The 2009 album earned Phoenix a Grammy and led to a headlining spot at California's Coachella festival, one of the biggest gigs in live music. Like "Ti Amo," "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix" saw music as aesthetic snapshots, with the group exploring Romanticism and Europe's hopefulness at the dawn of the 20th century. - An artistic distance - Phoenix, which has worked in New York and Berlin, saw no contradiction in envisioning Italy from Paris. Mazzalai said he was struck that Ernest Hemingway completed "A Moveable Feast," his memoir of Paris, in Cuba and the United States. "He had to be on the other side of the Atlantic to write about Paris, and when he was in Paris he wrote about what was happening in the United States," Mazzalai said. "I think it's the same for us," he said. Phoenix plans an extensive tour for "Ti Amo" including major festivals -- Glastonbury in England, Governors Ball in New York and Montreux Jazz in Switzerland. The band plans an elaborate stage design that features a slideshow of Italian scenes and a retro vending machine in which fans can buy merchandise or summer treats. "This is our reward for two and a half years of work that impassioned us but was tough," Mazzalai said of recording the album. "Touring is tiring -- but it's not tough!"