Alessandro Ducoli
Piccoli Animaletti

Once again, Ducoli has struck. The minstrel from Breno has once more managed to gather around him a true team of champions to prepare this album. Easy, you might say, by being supported by people like Ellade Bandini (drums), Max Gabanizza (bass), Giorgio Cordini (bouzouki), Michele Gazich (violin), Mario Stivala (guitars), Mirko Sprafico (percussions), Andrey Kutov (piano), Valerio Gaffurini (Hammond and programming), and Eugenio Samon (trumpet). But if you don't have the songs, you can hire whoever you want, and you still run the risk of going nowhere. Instead, Ducoli has the songs, and how. Moreover, they are tracks that, with these perfect and polished arrangements, work great.

Already the beginning immediately recalls the sound of the never-forgotten Bacco il Matto, with that incisive guitar riff that immediately captures and the singing halfway between sly and whispered. It's a cry of freedom, "La malura". I find a certain affinity between "dobbiamo valutare meglio, ancora, prima che decidano loro ogni volta" and "continuerai a farti scegliere o finalmente sceglierai?".

Then Ducoli turns to the extremely personal "I miei cento difetti", a very pianistic ballad, and here Kutov takes the lead role.

Still, smoky jazz club atmospheres somewhat in the style of Capossela (and I hope Ducoli won't mind), with an almost music box piece, "Una Silvia".

Alessandro Ducoli's singing continues to improve from album to album, and he does it with a "bad by necessity" attitude as he says (listen to "Una nuova città").

In "Il mulo", the guitar riffs return to prominence, with a great final solo.

"La cinciallegra" is a poetic track with a dreamy atmosphere, while the artistic reference of the album is the painter Antonio Ligabue, to whom the beautiful and jazzy "Il Laccabue" is dedicated.

A beautiful look at human beings in general, seen as "Piccoli animaletti," performed with the collaboration of a children's choir, the "Piccoli Animaletti" directed by Barbara Bellotti, who also participate in "Rattus" (composed by Kutov).

Every now and then, Ducoli's love melancholy emerges, here manifested in "Un germano irreale", with just a few delicate touches of acoustic guitar and sad vocals.

"Dialogo di guerra", with Michele Gazich's wonderful violin, is dedicated to Ilaria Alpi (the journalist killed in an ambush in Somalia in March 1994).

"Sopra il davanzale" is, for the moment, my favorite song of the album (it's a toss-up with "La malura" and "Una nuova città").

A hint of tex-mex in "Il carro", then the already mentioned "Rattus", and to conclude the album there's a nursery rhyme in the Camuno dialect, "Le renne sulla neve perenne".

And stop telling Ducoli, "You should make fewer and more carefully crafted albums" or other nonsense of the sort. He won't listen to you anyway. Also because the care and attention that he and his team of champions have put into "Piccoli animaletti" is rarely seen in current Italian albums.