Giampiero Riggio: Watschenbaum/Hold (Woolshop Productions, 2010)

Folktronica + post-rock. A bit out of time, you could object. But Giampiero Riggio, from Palermo, doesn't care at all and crafts a good (and double!) debut album fusing these two "old" genres.

As you might expect, the music sounds both expansive and shy, warm and a bit detached. Acoustic timbres (guitar, cello, piano, accordion, tinkles&clinkles) are coupled with desolate electronic elements, pauses, reverbs. The sound is way more involving than the hushed vocals and intimistic approach would suggest: the music's lulling, and ravishing.

The two cds are quite different. "Hold" reflects a more luminous spirit, and the atmosphere is more playful. "Watschenbaum", on the contrary, is more empied-out, and dominated by a melancholic mood.

Both of them, though, encompass the same apparent references: múm, Bon Iver, Tunng on the indie-folk side, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and acolytes on the post-rock one.

The tracks are surely more ambience-oriented than focused on melody: this may be a slight defect for the album, but is easily hidden by the pleasantness of the music.

"Hold/Watschenbaum" came out in late 2010 with just one-hundred copies, on the new-born Sicilian label Woolshop Productions. Full streaming is available on their website, and a "physical" copy is just 7 €!

Tracklist:
CD 1, "Watschenbaum":

1. Waatschn'bamm
2. Muttermilch
3. Die Geschichte Vom Stausee
4. A Slow Chant From A Tree
5. Dear Friends (For Gaël)
6. Awaken In The Park
7. I'm light
8. Muttermilch 2 
9. Turtle Enlightenment
10. Separation XI (Haunted) 
11. Stausee
    

CD 2, "Hold":

1. We Were Once So Tight
2. Protect
3. Face To
4. Black-Paper Butterflies (For Stefano)
5. It Felt
6. Light From Your Mouth
7. Boundaries
8. Mit Aller Macht
9. Moths Invasion
10. Universum (For Frank)
11. Liste

Credits:

• Violin: Claudio Cataldi
• Everything else: Giampiero Riggio

Download (160 kbps)


Similar music on the blog:
VV.AA..: Let's Talk about Muertepop (Muertepop, 2007)
Airportman: Letters (Lizard records, 2008)

Nada: L'amore è fortissimo e il corpo no (Storie di note, 2001)

There's a current which spawned through the Italian Nineties, corrupted most of their music and still drenches many contemporary productions with its fetishism for decadence and corporality. I'm talking about the "alternative rock" trend encompassing anything from Afterhours to Marlene Kuntz, such plagues as Giorgio Canali, Cesare Basile, and other of their fellow sulkers.
One of the very few good good outcomes of that scourge is Nada's "L'amore è fortissimo e il corpo no". It's not an orthodox representative of the trend, but it's a very good album indeed, and the influence of straighter "alternative" styles is evident. Basically, it's a singer/songwriter work, with very mature and raw lyrics depicting problematic lives and destitute conditions. More than narrating or describing, the songs "furnish" the space with sounds and scattered images, making you perceive the very mood of the situations.
Nada's voice is stark and livid, but shows an adultness which completely sets it apart from the "poser" attitude of the stereotypical late-Nineties "loser". The sound mixes sombre jazz/blues atmospheres, acoustic timbres, and hints at some trip-hop solutions. Someway, it reminds of the extraordinary ambience of Serge Gainsbourg's "L'histoire de Melodie Nelson". There are many harsher "rock" grafts though, right with the alternation of coarse sounds and effected "psychedelic" passages which is typical of Italian alternative rock. A couple of tracks are a bit brighter nevertheless, and even feature some reggae influences or musical box sounds.

Nada Malanima was born in 1953 in the province of Livorno (Tuscany). She debuted when she was just sixteen, and crossed four decades with a high-quality career marked by important artistic partnerships (Piero Ciampi, Paolo Conte, Goblin, Avion Travel...). During the Nineties she approached to songwriting, and "L'amore è fortissimo e il corpo no" is her third album as an author.

Tracklist:

1. Gesù
2. Giulia
3. Meraviglioso
4. L'amore è fortissimo
5. In generale
6. Grazie
7. La musica antica
8. Suonano alla porta
9. Questa donna

Download (192 kbps)


Similar music on the blog:
La Crus: omonimo (1995)
Fiorella Mannoia: Certe piccole voci (Harpo, 1999)

Eugenio Finardi: Sugo (Cramps, 1976)

An album reflecting the mood of its time, the strong political involvement of Italian music in the mid-Seventies. The opening track is one of the best known symbols of the era, "Musica ribelle", celebrating the unstoppable urge of rock music, dragging away the youth from their comfortable passivity and making them part of the "rebellion". Despite the strong connection with the social climate of the period, the song is direct, heartfelt and lacks any rhetorics: for these reasons, it hasn't aged at all, and is still as intense and striking as it was at the time.
The rest of the album is much less topical in its themes - and much more evidently naïve in the rhymes, but is musically very good nontheless. The band who played on the record was composed of top-notch musicians from the Milanese progressive scene: Area's Patrizio Fariselli, Paolo Tofani, Ares Tavolazzi, (soon to be) PFM's Lucio Fabbri and the well-known Cramps Records sessionmen Hugh Bullen, Walter Calloni, Alberto Camerini. "Quasar" is an all-instrumental track clearly reminding of Area, but the album's most remarkable for its fusion of jazz-rock with American folk-rock models (a pretty unusual fact, since it was the UK which inspired most of the musicians back in those days). Finardi's passion for American music has its biographic roots: Finardi's mother is American and he was raised in an American school in Milan. His excellent English pronounciation can be noticed in "La C.I.A.", an intriguing and quite "early" raggae/rock experiment.

Here's an interesting documentary/interview about "Musica ribelle" (in Italian).

Tracklist:

1. Musica ribelle
2. La radio
3. Quasar
4. Soldi
5. Ninnananna
6. Sulla strada
7. Voglio
8. Oggi ho imparato a volare
9. La C.I.A.
10. La paura del domani

Download (160 kbps)

Similar music on the blog:
Alberto Camerini: Cenerentola e il pane quotidiano (Cramps, 1976)
Area: Maledetti (Cramps, 1976)

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)

Ivano Fossati: La pianta del tè (CBS, 1988)

When the elusive humanism of the singer/songwriter school meets the scents of world music. When Africa and South-America blend together, and their blend is called "Mediterranean". When a Piedmontese accordion can seduce the shimmery guitars of South-African Mbaqanga and wave to the beat of a reggae beat.

It's an album of joy, "La pianta del tè", and an album of melancholy. It's suffused and springy, and pensive, and ecstatic. It's an album of lush arrangements and exceptional rhythmic refinement. The grooves are vigorous, but sparse, infectious, but subtly askew.

There are the songs, then, and Ivano Fossati's envelopping voice - his husky grain, and his quintessential prolonged vocals. And guests: Fabrizio De André, Francesco De Gregori and Teresa De Sio, all of them contributing to the unique mood of Fossati's tenth solo record.

Tracklist:

1. La pianta del té
2. Terra dove andare
3. L'uomo coi capelli da ragazzo
4. La volpe
5. La pianta del té (parte seconda)
6. Questi posti davanti al mare
7. La signora del ponte-lance
8. Chi guarda Genova
9. La costruzione di un amore
10. Caffè lontano

Download (112 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:
L'orchestra di Piazza Vittorio: Sona (RadioFandango/Edel, 2006)
Radiodervish: In acustico (Cosmasola, 2001)

Enzo Carella: Vocazione (It, 1977)

Musically speaking, "Vocazione" is just a collection of well-played funky/pop songs. And the singing voice is dim, precarious.
Luckily, there's much more in the album. First of all, lyrics and melodies. The former are an exquisite combination of levity and obliqueness. A whirlwind of gameplays and slighthly puzzling images. The latter are just as zippy and sibylline: tuneful and cosy, but never totally unveiling themselves. They don't let your curiosity slide into unconcerned comfort: there's always some detail you never noticed before, an unexpected dart or pirouette.
So the voice, fleecy, but sprightly, reveals its harmony with the mood of the songs. Discreet, but captivating. Tender, a bit dreamy; even ingenuous, why not? The same goes for the music: unpretentious, elegant and pleasantly old-fashioned, it projects a subtle shade of melancholy, a sweet aftertaste for such a sunny album.

Enzo Carella is a Roman singer/songwriter. This is his first album, with words by will-be Lucio Battisti lyricist Pasquale Panella.

Tracklist:

1. Vocazione
2. Guarda l'uccellino
3. Ballatetta
4. Fosse vero
5. Malamore
6. L'anima pagliacciona
7. La serietà
8. Il sud è un'infanzia sudata

Download (192 kbps)


Similar albums on the blog:
Alberto Fortis: omonimo (1979)
Lucio Battisti: Don Giovanni (Numero Uno, 1986)

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)

Gianfranco Manfredi: Zombie di tutto il mondo unitevi (Ultima spiaggia, 1977)

An atypical singer/songwriter album, very sarcastic about the remnants of the 68 era though manifestly bound to the left-wing contestation area. The lyrics are sharp and salacious, still quite enjoyable for their cleverness even if the themes they deal of are a bit outdated.

Musically speaking, the songs are quite elaborate, both for the arrangements and for the meandery melodies. Some slight progressive leanings, muscular string arrangements and zippy piano/drums bluesy grooves converge to an energic - though melancholic - atmosphere which wonderfully portraits the garrulous disillusionment of the lyrics.

"Zombie di tutto il mondo unitevi" (evidently a pun on Marx&Engels's adagio "Workers of the world, unite!") is Gianfranco Manfredi's third album, written with fellow singer/songwriter Ricky Gianco and performed by prog-rock celebrities Premiata Forneria Marconi. The album inspired a theatrical show, which was staged by Manfredi, Gianco and P.F.M. in 1977.

Manfredi's now a comics writer, working for Bonelli editions (Magico Vento, Volto Nascosto).

Tracklist:

1. Dagli Appennini alle bande
2. Un tranquillo festival pop di paura
3. Ultimo mohicano
4. Zombie di tutto il mondo unitevi
5. Gatte da pelare
6. Lamiento de amor
7. Ogino Knaus
8. Feto di gruppo con signora
9. I modelli
10. Nella diversità

Download (128 kbps)

Similar albums on Il golpe e l'uva:

David Riondino: Racconti picareschi

Alberto Fortis: omonimo

Gianmaria Testa: Montgolfières (Label Bleu, 1995)

"Montgolfières" shows a singer/songwriter style much in debt with Paolo Conte and later Francesco Guccini, but very personal nevertheless. The arrangements are jazzy, acoustic and old-fashioned, very warm as Gianmaria Testa's voice is (smoky, round, slightly detached); some elegant Caribbean touches make the songs extremely pleasant from a musical point of view. The lyrics are distinguished and unostentatious, poetic, though not especially literate: they're humble, metaphorical, a bit coy - always a bit Pindaric and meditative, wise and marvelled.

Gianmaria Testa was stationmaster in Cuneo, Piedmont. "Montgolfières" is his first album, first published in France, where he still one of the most popular Italian artists.


Tracklist:

1. Città lunga
2. Le traiettorie delle mongolfiere
3. Habanera
4. La donna del bar
5. Dentro la tasca di un qualunque mattino
6. Un aeroplano a vela
7. Come le onde del mare
8. L'automobile
9. Senza titolo
10. Le donne nelle stazioni
11. Maria
12. Manacore
13. La terra delle colline
14. Città lunga (reprise)

Download (160 kbps)

Paolo Conte: Concerti (CGD, 1985)

Though he's older than the other ones among the most prominent cantautori, Paolo Conte didn't record songs until 1974, and reached personal fame only in 1979, with the album "Un gelato al limon". Despite his longtime work as a songwriter (he's the man behind such hits as Celentano's "Azzurro" and Caterina Caselli's "Insieme a te non ci sto più"), Conte's name is mainly associated with the first Eighties.

"Concerti" is his first live album, featuring some of the most successful and indicative songs. It's a wonderful synthesis of his unique style, based on very passionate and amusing piano playing, old-fashioned jazz structures and arrangements and half-spoken, smoky vocals. Both the lyrics and the music are usually detached, reserved and even cynical at times, but they're unfailingly wise, ironic, unpretentious and somehow tender-hearted. A very cultured and poetic character, Conte often focuses on lazy and autumnal impressions, based on mixed-level nomenclatures, black-and-white atmospheres and suspended chords. Musically speaking, he's probably the most classy of all the italian singer/songwriters.
"Concerti" isn't Conte's most celebrated album, but as a live and recapitulatory album it has two main merits: it works fine as an introduction to his very personal style and his most immediate songs, and it doesn't have the same very tiresome production gloss of his studio recordings.


Tracklist:

1. Lo zio
2. Come di
3. La ricostruzione del Mocambo
4. Via con me
5. La Topolino amaranto
6. Alle prese con la verde milonga
7. Parigi
8. Diavolo rosso
9. Hemingway
   
10. Bartali
11. Un gelato al limon
12. Una giornata al mare
13. Il nostro amico angiolino
14. Onda su onda
15. Sotto le stelle del jazz
16. Azzurro
17. Boogie
18. Genova per noi

Download (~190 kbps)

Gino D'Eliso: Ti ricordi Vienna? (RCA, 1977)

After having released his first record for Lucio Battisti's label Numero Uno, triestinian singer/songwriter Gino d'Eliso got together a full-blown disco orchestra for his second LP.
The music of "Ti ricordi Vienna?" is a very peculiar meeting of the decadent, dandyesque approach of glam-rock, Lucio Battisti's refinate pop, the bombastic grooves of disco music and mild Balkan nuances.

Though the lyrics aren't brilliant, the songs are all strikingly sophisticated and captivating. Super-funky basslines and energic italo-prog riffs wonderfully fuse with emphatic violin strokes and theatrical Hammond organ blows to create convoluted, multi-layered, mostly upbeat tunes.
Aside from the undeniable quality of the compositions, "Ti ricordi Vienna?"'s a very interesting work for an unique merger of influences configuring it as a bridge between times and places: Italian and Mediterranean pop sounds, the American disco trend, and a more far-seeing continental spleen.

The quality of the rip is very poor, but I really couldn't manage to get a better one.


Tracklist:

1. Bellezza normanna
2. Kajmac Calan
3. Il tamburello e l'eroe
4. Non saremo angeli
5. Fiesta messicana
6. Ti ricordi Vienna?
7. Tanto arriva domenica
8. Non basta la poesia
9. La notte di erasmo

Download (192 kbps)

Alberto Camerini: Cenerentola e il pane quotidiano (Cramps, 1976)

Alberto Camerini was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and he stayed there until the age of eleven, when he relocated to Milan. There he soon became involved in rock music, first teaming with Roberto Colombo, then forming the band Il Pacco with Donatella Bardi, Eugenio Finardi, Belloni and Lucio Fabbri.
While the others began recording as solo artists or got into other bands (Lucio Fabbri was to join P.F.M.), Camerini became an acclaimed sessionman thanks to his whimsical guitar playing.

As of 1976, he signed with Cramps Records and recorded his first solo album, "Cenerentola e il pane quotidiano". Musically speaking, the sound is the typical one of Cramps Records: kaleidoscopic, zippy jazz-rock combined with folk and singer/songwriter structures - very close to Area or Finardi's Cramps-era albums. Camerini merged some exquisite Brazilian nuances to the formula and his very sprightly melodic talent, creating a dynamic, easy-going style.
The lyrics aren't stunningly literate, but they're brilliantly critical: while they do not explicitly step out of the left-wing youth culture, they ironize upon its trends and irrationalities. "Pane quotidiano" laughs at the vegetarian fashion, while "La ballata dell'invasione degli extraterresti" is an illuminating picture of the hippies as "aliens":

Approfittarono del lusso della civiltà avanzata,
Si nutrivano di scarti della società privata
Riciclavano le macchine e i vestiti non usati,
Si vestivano di niente, di stracci colorati.
Vivevano in bande in case occupate,
Non avevano famiglia o tradizioni antiquate
Comunicavano tra loro con nuovi segnali,
Tu li avresti detti diversi invece erano tutti uguali.

They took advantage of the luxury of the advanced civilization,
They lived on the waste of the private society
They recycled cars and unemployed dresses,
They dressed of nothing, of coloured rags,
They lived in bands in squatted houses,
They didn't have a family or antiquated traditions
They communicated with themselves with a new kind of signals,
You'd have said they were all diverse, but they were all the same.

Tracklist:

1. La ballata dell'invasione degli extraterrestri
2. Maracantù F.C.
3. Pane quotidiano
4. Sicurezza
5. Droga (aiutami dottore)
6. La straordinaria storia dell'invasione della televisione
7. TV Baby (gli eroi della televisione)
8. Santa Marta
9. Cenerentola

Download (192 kbps)

Artemoltobuffa: L'aria misteriosa (Aiuola, 2007)

Artemoltobuffa is basically singer/songrwiter Alberto Muffato's nom de plume. As a band, it's composed by five elements, with Muffato carrying out the most important role: he writes the music and the lyrics, he sings, he plays the guitar and the keyboards.
The indie-pop style of the band have been portraited as something like an Italian equivalent of Eels or Sparklehorse, but the most appropriate comparisons are much probably the ones with the Canadian indie scene: Broken Social Scene, Stars and the whole Arts & Crafts entourage.

The songs composing Artemoltobuffa's second album are unpretentious pop jewels rendering sketches of everyday life and emotions in an intimate, fanciful and elegant manner. Unexceptional situations come to emanate a discreet and slightly magical aura thanks to the twinkling, stratified sound (sometimes enriched by chamber instruments), Muffato's clean and unruffled voice and his simple but very refined lyrics.
The lyrics are indeed one of the strongest points of Artemoltobuffa's formula. Muffato declines usual Italian haughtiness and concentrates on an easy-going but surprisingly sharp lexicon and narrative style which may remind of modern Italian writers such as Gianni Rodari or Italo Calvino. The result are sincere, evocative sketches which show ordinary circumstances from a different perspective, recreating the long-lost sensations of the childish sense of wonder.


Tracklist:

1. Le rughe sulla fronte
2. Invenzioni
3. Estate
4. Dove lei passa
5. Lucciole
6. Impiegata delle poste
7. Tempo al tempo
8. L'aria misteriosa
9. Aranciata
10. Se un giorno

Download
(192/128 kbps)

Garbo: Scortati (EMI, 1982)

One of the main figures of the Italian new wave, Milanese artist Renato Abate gained some celebrity with the single "A Berlino... Va bene" extracted from his first album. "Scortati" is his sophomore release and improves his rich synth-pop formula, strongly influenced by David Bowie, Roxy Music and, much probably, Japan.
The album pivots around Garbo's deep, velvety voice, often half-spoken. Laid down, dressy but always very heartfelt. The sinuous, but sturdy basslines and the driving synth melodies and interlocks are the other core elements of "Scortati"'s very elegant sound. The guitars burst in here and there to dialogue with the keyboards with a red-hot, Phil Manzanera-like buzz.
The songs are extremely well conceived, both melodically and rhythmically. The album has its own, decadent allure and is surely one of the most accomplished of its era.


Tracklist:

1. Scortati
2. Generazione
3. Moderni
4. Al tuo fianco
5. Vorrei regnare
6. Terre bianche
7. Dance citadine
8. Frontiere - Auf Wiedersen

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
    

Download re-up

Max Gazzè: La favola di Adamo ed Eva (Virgin/EMI, 1998)

Max Gazzè's songwriting's very sprightly and tuneful, but his melodies are always elegant and askance. He has a velvety, high-pitched voice which makes impossible not to recognise his style. There are some excellent songs here: tender, airy... But the album's not very balanced and there are some weak tracks. It's not a good reason not to listen to it, though: these are the cases the "skip" button's really useful.


Tracklist:

1. La favola di Adamo ed Eva
2. Una musica può fare
3. Cara Valentina
4. Raduni Ovali
5. L'amore pensato
6. Nel verde
7. Comunque vada
8. Come si conviene (Bon pà)
9. L'origine del mondo
10. Vento d'estate
11. Autoironia
12. Colloquium Vitae
13. Casi ciclici
14. Due apparecchi cosmici per la trasformazione

Download (192 kbps) re-up

Claudio Lolli: Ho Visto Anche Degli Zingari Felici (EMI, 1976)

A very good singer/songwriter album, with the songs forming a continuum which ends right in the way it begins. There are some jazzy elements (saxophone, flute, wah-wah here and there), but the style is very essential. Excellent lyrics, good melodies and great songs. The mood is breezy, just subtly melancholic. It reminds alternatively of Francesco De Gregori or Fabrizio De André, but aside from comparisons Lolli's definitely original.



Tracklist:

1. Introduzione
2. Agosto
3. Piazza, bella piazza
4. Primo maggio di festa
5. La morte della mosca
6. Anna di Francia
7. Albana per Togliatti
8. Conclusione

Download (192 kbps, re-up)