Claudio Baglioni: Viaggiatore sulla coda del tempo (Columbia Sony Music, 1999)

Baroque pop means dressy arrangements, highfalutin melodies, and a certain amount of pretentiousness. But in the case of this album, the expression gets some additional meanings. Talking about structures, these songs don't reach the puzzling complexity of Battisti's later efforts: no deconstruction here, just verse/chorus/bridge/coda craftmanship taken to masterwork level - the quintessence of baroque aestethics. Lyrics and rhymes are of the most convoluted kind: lines and lines of far-fetched metaphores just to say one small concept, interwoven with elaborate rhyme schemes which always privilege form above content.
The arrangements are layered and affected by a purely baroque form of horror vacui: in any other context, they'd sound overproduced, but here they just fit perfectly. Blending orchestral gusts and trip-hop architectures, Fripp-like curves and abrupt world music meddlings, their amazing sound depth's a stirring counterpoint to the impressive vocal glides propelling the songs.

21th album by pop-rock superstar Claudio Baglioni, the lp is some sort of concept work about midlife and the passing of time. It was produced by Cervello's Corrado Rustici, and the drums were played by longtime Baglioni's collaborator Gavin Harrison, later of Porcupine Tree fame.

Tracklist:

1. Hangar
2. Un mondo a forma di te
3. Si io sarò
4. Stai su
5. Caravan
6. Mal d'universo
7. Chi c'è in ascolto
8. Opere e omissioni
9. Quanto tempo ho
10. A domani
11. Cuore di aliante
12. A Clà

Download (320 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Ivano Fossati: La pianta del tè (CBS, 1988)
Lucio Battisti: Anima latina (Numero Uno, 1975)

Baraonna: self-titled (Rossodisera Records, 1994)

Baraonna are a vocal quartet revisiting the Neapolitan tradition with a swing touch. The description would account for an incredibly cheap and kitsch neo-traditional pastiche, but Baraonna's attitude is quite different from this expectation. Their clean, refined and retro-sounding style might remind the most aristocratic episodes of Matia Bazar, and the perfectly controlled sopranistic vocals are pretty close too. Moreover, they share some aspects with prog/world/pop band Avion Travel: a convoluted, but higly evocative and mediterranean melodic sense; a very genteel tendency to recitation which projects the songs in a fantasized world, suspended between heartfeltness and demiurgic detachedness.

The songs of the album stand out even more for their funambolic vocal harmonies and counterpoints, which take back directly to Swingle Singers, Manhattan Transfer or, talking of Italian models, Quartetto Cetra. Their music is virtuous, sophisticated, but extremely playful: Baraonna like out-of-context quotations and musical jokes ("Fuga in re" superimposes three children melodies: "Giro giro tondo", "Fra martino campanaro" and "Ma che bel castello") and all the songs are very light and breezy.
The album contains a couple of cover versions: Paolo Conte's "Come di" and "Palconscenico" by Mauro Castelnuovo (actually a translation itself, from Julien Clerc's "Ma preference a moi"). The quartet is accompained by swingy arrangements, Spanish guitars and ethereal keyboards, which strangely enhance the elegant soberty of their sound.

Founded in 1992 by the brothers Angela, Rosella, Serena and Vito Caporale, Baraonna participated to Sanremo Festival in 1994 and won the critique award with the song "I giardini d'Alhambra". The music and the lyrics are composed by Vito and Angela with the help of their father Fulvio, a musician himself.


Tracklist:

1. I giardini d'Alhambra
2. Niente swing
3. Cola
   
4. Ninna nanna d'argiento
   
5. Fuite
6. Mediterranea gente
7. Scaramacai
8. Comme di
9. All'uriente
10. Fuga in re
11. Palcoscenico
12. Brigante
13. 1799

Download (192 kbps)

John De Leo: Vago Svanendo (2008)

First solo album by former Quintorigo singer John De Leo. "Vago Svanendo" (I drift and fade away) appearently doesn't step away from the group's nevrotic chamber-rock formula, but in fact shows a more definite singer/songwriter approach and more experimental leanings, specially concerning the role of the voice. The songs rely on a surreal imaginary in the vein of Vinicio Capossela or "Ottocento" by Fabrizio De André, with a broad use of nonsense, free associations and onomatopeic worplay.
Unluckily the album's quite uneven: besides the most meaty songs, there are too many divertissements and fillers which make about half of the album almost forgettable.

Here's my review for the webzine www.ondarock.it


Tracklist:

1. Intro: 4 Piano Notes
2. Freak Ship
3. Vago svanendo (lasum sté)
4. L'uomo che continua
5. Canzo
6. Tilt (C'è Mattia?)
7. Spiega la vela
8. Big stuff
9. Bambino marrone
10. Le chien et le flacon
11. Sinner
    

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Quintorigo: In cattività (2003)

Quintorigo: sax, violin, cello, double bass and very histrionic vocals. They are a rock band. They cover such things as "Higway Star" (Deep Purple) and "Clap Hands" (Tom Waits) but no, luckily they're not the Italian Apocalyptica. They're sound is nervous and jocose, edgy, theatrical but always very funny and elegant. The lyrics are crazy. So bad they waited till their extraordinary singer John De Leo left the band to cover Area's "Luglio Agosto Settembre (Nero)", which was evidently written with Quintorigo in the mind back in the Seventies...
"In cattività" isn't their best album in my opinion, but it's fairly good all the same, and ablings it's the only one I actually have with a decent bitrate. Enjoy it!


Tracklist:

1. Illune (ninna nanna)
2. Neon-Sun
3. Clap Hands
4. Bogliasco
5. U.S.A. e getta
6. Myxectbo e Ckopocts
7. Dimentico
8. Night And Day
9. Deux heures de soleil (deux)
10. Raptus (il signore inesistente)
11. Rap-tus
12. Darn That Dream
13. Illune
14. Illume + Zahra (ghost track)
15. Raptus (ghost track)
16. Illume (ghost track)
    

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