Where It All Returns
Where It All Returns is an album built around the idea of return.
The movement and dynamics of its musical elements—disappearing only to suddenly resurface, transforming and reconnecting throughout the course of the work—ultimately come together to form a complete iconography in the final track (which gives the project its title).
But return also serves as the starting point for a deeper, symbolic discourse.
This project marks Francesco Cafiso’s third collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra, following Contemplation (2015) and Irene of Boston (2020). A circle closes here, not as an ending, but as a natural point of convergence: Where It All Returns.
The album unfolds across seven tracks, tracing a map of archetypes and ancestral elements, each carrying a meaning that becomes increasingly defined throughout the course of an inner journey.
These are not isolated compositions, but interconnected passages—a path of transformation.
A circular journey rather than a linear progression. Themes are never fully abandoned: they evolve, change form, and return, carrying with them a renewed memory.
As in Contemplation and Irene of Boston, there is no definitive conclusion, but rather a mutation—something dissolves only to reappear transfigured.
In this sense, the album evokes the image of the Ouroboros: what returns is never identical, but regenerated through experience.
The orchestral writing constantly dialogues with improvisation, maintaining a delicate balance between form and freedom.
The orchestra is never merely a backdrop, but a living body that breathes with the soloist, expanding gesture and expression.
At its core lies a call to resistance, in harmony with the ethical and poetic axis of Marco Steiner, echoing the spirit of Dylan Thomas’s famous line—“Do not go gentle into that good night”—here transformed into a contemporary invocation: a refusal of resignation, a rebellion against the slow extinction of light in human eyes.
The seven tracks can be heard as musical responses to this call.
1 Cartographers of the Soul
2 The Essence of a Poem
3 Yearning Wings
4 Echoes of Qafiz
5 Light for the Other
6 Tarowean
7 Where It All Returns
Francesco Cafiso Alto Saxophone / Compositions / Arrangements
Mauro Schiavone Piano / Arrangements
Gabriele Evangelista Double Bass
Marcus Gilmore Drums
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by M° Tom Richards
Recorded on September 10, 2025 in London’s Angel Studios, and on November 13 and 14, 2025 at Tube Recording Studio in Fara Sabina, Italy.
Sound Engineered by Riccardo Piparo, Mat Bartram and Francesco Lupi
Mixed by Riccardo Piparo at Cantieri 51 in Palermo, Italy
Mastered by Roberto Romano at OS3 Studios, Rome, Italy
Artwork by Giovanni Robustelli
Storytelling by Marco Steiner
Artistic production By EFLAT records
Executive production by Athena Produzioni
Main Sponsor Vittoria Tomatoes
Supporting Sponsor Siriac S.R