Beautiful Useless Songs

Beautiful Useless Songs is Gabriele di Franco's new project: a song cycle for voice, guitar, double bass, drums and tenor saxophone, with Sarah Klenès (voice), Fil Caporali (double bass), Daniel Jonkers (drums), Lennert Baerts (tenor saxophone) and Gabriele on guitar.

The songs are intimate and lyrical, with a narrative thread running through them. Gabriele writes the lyrics himself, mostly in English. The voice does not stand in front of the band: it is one more instrument. Voice and tenor saxophone blend into a single colour, and every musician takes part in telling the story.

The title is a provocation Gabriele aims at himself. We live surrounded by events far bigger than us, and as an artist it is easy to feel the weight of having to do or say something. Measured against what they can actually change, songs will always be useless. So he chooses to write useless songs from the start: songs that are useful to him, as a way to express himself, and hopefully to someone else too.

The project had its first try out on 15 July 2026 at C-mine in Genk, in a carte blanche concert. Fil, Daniel and Lennert were already on stage, with Vanesa Diaz Gil on voice. The video is a live recording of Drops and Sand from that night.