This isn’t classical harp music. Fusco treats her instrument like a mad scientist treats a lab, armed with hairpins, wax, and sticky tape to create what can only be described as controlled chaos. She’s literally dunked herself and her harp underwater to capture sounds that shouldn’t exist. It sounds nothing like what you’d expect from a harp.
“Resistance is knowing that from struggle and imperfection, beauty can still be born,” Fusco explains. “It is the silent courage of those who keep fighting, even when everything seems not to understand or stands against them. To resist means not to bend, to remain true to oneself, to bloom where no one imagined life could grow.”
It’s a philosophy that runs deeper than just this track. As she puts it: “As De André reminded us, not from diamonds, but from waste, flowers are born. And this is true Resistance: turning rejection into strength, scraps into life, silence into song.” Following her Iggy Pop collaboration “SHE” (which got BBC 6 Music properly excited), this new track feels more personal, more defiant. It’s the sound of someone who’s tired of being told what their instrument should do.
The visuals match this spirit perfectly, flowers blooming through cracks in concrete, life persisting where it shouldn’t. It’s heavy-handed symbolism that somehow works because Fusco has earned the right to be this earnest. When you’ve performed everywhere from the Royal Albert Hall to the United Nations, when you’ve served as a Eurovision juror and toured South America for Swiss embassies, you get to make grand statements.
What’s really special about “Resistance” is how it manages to sound both intimate and bold. Those underwater recordings create this weird, womb-like atmosphere, while her prepared harp techniques add industrial edge. It shouldn’t work, but it absolutely does.
This is just a taste of her upcoming album BOHÈME, and if “Resistance” is any indication, Fusco isn’t interested in playing it safe. She’s making music that genuinely sounds like nothing else, turning the harp into something unrecognisable yet undeniably powerful.
Sometimes the best art comes from people who refuse to stay in their lane. Fusco obliterated hers years ago.
“Resistance” is out September 5th, with ‘BOHÈME’ following September 19th.
Top image credit Wegyg Studio
