Imported (Limited Coloured Vinyl)

Raised in the classical conservatories of Italy, where she was considered a child prodigy on the cello and toured with orchestras throughout Europe, moving to the United States was not a part of Chiara D’Anzieri’s life plan. She taught herself guitar, bass, and drums, and studied the music of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, Velvet Underground, The Doors, and The Beatles. She nicknamed herself “Santa Chiara,” after her favorite monastery in Naples, to give her music a divine connection. As a female singer/songwriter, she faced backlash and misogyny, so she learned how to record and produce her own music.

And at 24, just as she was on the verge of giving up her dreams, she met someone who would forever change her life’s trajectory: Her now-husband, American singer/songwriter Ron Gallo.

Santa Chiara’s IMPORTED, out October 20, 2023 via legendary indie label Kill Rock Stars, tells the story of their transatlantic romance and everything that followed: Leaving her home country and immigrating to the United States at 25, building a first home together in Nashville, and ultimately leaving that home for a new one in Philadelphia, where the couple now resides.

“Being an immigrant at the age of 25 was a new territory – my life was changing drastically,” D’Anzieri says. “I was moving to the other side of the planet, to a country I was never interested in, speaking a different language from my own, and leaving everything behind me out of love. It was and still is a big deal.”

“This album is a collection of moments, pictures, feelings, sadness, nostalgia, thoughts, hopes, and love. I wanted to make a record that sounded just like me. I wanted to play instruments how I like, put them together how I think they go together. Making music that sounds how I would look. I wanted this record to be so easy and clear. I wanted it to be immediate. It’s called IMPORTED because it is actually imported; it comes with me, talks about my stories and my history. Being Italian and European comes out in little things, even just in the way I use words.”

Self-produced and largely self-performed by D’Anzieri (with guest performances by Ron Gallo, Dominic Billett, Jerry Bernhardt, and Eric Slick), IMPORTED is a labor of love born out of life’s euphoric highs and turbulent lows.