Fiorella Mannoia: Certe piccole voci (Harpo, 1999)

What a voice. Deep, warm, vivid and bittersweet. Every note is full-bodied and enormously femine - neither a Lolita nor a femme fatale fashion, but the voice of a woman, with the placid and overwhelming charm of maturity. Responsibility and everyday life which succeeded to compenetrate with love and dreams.

Some may say the music in this album isn't but ordinary cantautori stuff, not particularly intimate or intense, nor particularly original or elegant. Even a bit mannerist with regards to the sessionman-dominated sound which came to characterize the style of the foremost Italian singer/songwiters during the Nineties. And that would be true, 'cause the point in these songs and these renditions isn't innovation, fantasy or introspection, but talking discreetly to the heart of those who listen. Without changing their life, but giving them for a moment the chance to reflect upon it and dream.

The best episodes in "Certe piccole voci" have this peculiar charm, and there are many of them among the 25 tracks of the double LP. The styles are very varied in terms of composition, often relying on simple structures occasionally coloured by refinate chord changes and Irish influences. The narrations are mainly based on images, but sill their design differs much from song to song. The arrangements, though, are all quite close one another in terms of sound: perfectly centered on the voice, they embellish it with crystalline-clear acoustic guitar chords ranging between delicacy and muscularity. The soundscape is completed by wet synthetizers, glossy piano sketches and jazzy drum patterns and basslines. Here and there, some guitar or saxophone solo steals the spot from the voice giving the music a more instrumental feeling (the results aren't very good, usually).

Fiorella Mannoia emerged, starting from the Eighties, as one of the most personal and classy interpreters of the cantautori repertoire. Her name is linked to such songs as Vasco Rossi's "Sally", Bubola's "Il cielo d'Irlanda", Ruggeri's "Quello che le donne non dicono", Piero Fabrizi's "Belle speranze". "Certe piccole voci" is her first live album after ten studio LPs.

Tracklist:

CD 1

1. L'amore con l'amore si paga (I. Fossati)
2. Sally (V. Rossi)
3. I treni a vapore (I. Fossati)
4. Il fiume e la nebbia (D. Silvestri)
5. Non sono un cantautore (P. Fabrizi)
6. Cuore di cane (F. De Gregori)
7. Normandia (P. Fabrizi)
8. Belle speranze (P. Fabrizi)
9. Piano solo (D. Rea)
10. Oh che sarà (C. B. De Hollanda - I. Fossati)
11. Il culo del mondo (C. Veloso - A. Lamberti - P. Fabrizi)
12. Caterina e il coraggio (P. Fabrizi)
13. Passalento (I. Fossati)

CD 2

1. Le notti di Maggio (I. Fossati)
2. Sorvolando Eilat (P. Fabrizi - Mogol)
3. Lunaspina (I. Fossati)
4. La stagione dell'amore (F. Battiato)
5. Il tempo non torna più (P. Fabrizi)
6. I dubbi dell'amore (E. Ruggeri - L. Schiavone)
7. I muscoli del capitano (F. De Gregori)
8. Ninetto e la colonia (F. De Gregori)
9. l cielo d'Irlanda (M. Bubola)
10. Crazy Boy (S. Bersani)
11. Quello che le donne non dicono (E. Ruggeri - L. Schiavone)
12. Ascolta l'infinito (P. Fabrizi - E. Ruggeri)

Download (128 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Francesco Guccini: Fra la via Emilia e il West (EMI, 1984)

Paolo Conte: Concerti (CGD, 1985)

Transgender: Sen Soj Trumàs (Snowdonia/New LM Record, 2003)

A fiercely cross-style and cross-reference record, on the brink of prog-rock, post-rock, post-punk. The music plunges into King Crimson distorted assaults, Tortoise-like angular weavings, Mr. Bungle's provincial matchings, muscolarity, rarefyings. The vocals are mostly sung in a disquieting fictitious language and the treatment is often dystopian and futurist, maybe reminding the kitsch and hypertrophic imaginary of Trans AM. Some French here and there, an excerpt declaimed by Giovanni Lindo Ferretti and nonchalantly overblown circus/fanfare episodes, noisy bursts and mellotron-soaked textures are just some of the many odd-tasting elements scattered like raisins in a panettone.

Transgender are an Emilian band. This is their second studio album after a bunch of demo CDs. "Mey Ark Vu" followed in 2006.

ps. If you have a bigger/higher definition artwork image, please give me a link!

Tracklist:

1. Dre Oucantèlva
2. Multìs
3. Le dernier jour
4. Craud
5. Dre Foè
6. Mavra (Sal a ruè)
7. Mantra
8. Spoony Geeza
9. A Crime Memoir
10. Dernier jour (Remix by Serial)

Download (160 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Corleone: Wei Wu Wei (Etnagigante/V2 Records Italia, 2005)

C.C.C.P. Fedeli alla linea: Epica etica etnica pathos (Virgin, 1990)