•
Rating:
A powerful, lysergic, visionary, and hallucinogenic album, then. But above all, rigorously live. While in Italy the mass distraction media informed us that Nina Moric's child had gotten his first tooth, and that Albano and Romina were separating (what the hell do we care, one might add, with a stadium chorus..), Alessandro Esseno wisely chose to perform in countries like Belgium, Germany, the United States, and Denmark, where although the inhabitants are also human beings, the cultural level is not yet that of a herd of brain-damaged individuals afflicted by Sanremo/Parkinson's disease. A degenerative disease with no escape: day after day the brain first atrophies and then dies.
A cross-career in universal counter-trend to the prevailing laws in the entertainment world in Italy (do we want to call it mafia?), started in 1990 with the release of a first album that was in some ways futuristic, at least in its themes and arrangements.
Throughout concerts held by Esseno over a period from 1993 to 2013 (really!), this rebellious and never-tame artist, rolls out tracks of differing energetic nature; from a type of post-modern and cocaine-laden rock (with a vaguely crimsonian flavor, see Adrian Belew..), to rarefied and primordial atmospheres that can be traced back to a certain type of German school music (see Tangerine Dream & related..). But Alessandro Esseno is above all himself. An artist far from trends and cultural tendencies or thereabouts, with a disenchanted outlook on life and at the same time escaped from the world's ugliness. Slashing electric guitar, contrasting with the liquid sweetness of a perpetually reverberated and distant piano, yet powerfully and precisely executed when necessary, like a mechanical striker.. String structures in 6/8 form a counterpoint to the poetic and moving story in the track "Andrew the Dolphin"; in a trio version with bass and drums, Esseno showcases his proverbial piano technique, revisiting a 60s classic by American singer-songwriter Tim Hardin: "Hang on to a Dream". With references ranging from Lalo Schifrin to Gershwin, passing through Pink Floyd and Chopin.. A rare example of consummate professionalism.
The gallery continues with textbook tracks like "Sky Line" or "Where the Planes Leave a Trail". Untainted sonic forms are containers of emotions frozen in time and therefore of an almost unbearable purity..
A live album that is also at the same time a moral slap to the various Italian music critics, always strangely distracted or absent when it comes to saying a few words about talented Italian artists (see Luigi Tenco, Umberto Bindi, Piero Ciampi), guilty only of not belonging to any political bandwagon or criminal association (which we have seen to be the same thing..). But Alessandro Esseno knows all this well and is already beyond it, as his new beautiful album published these days titled "The Law of Continuous Change" states. Nothing and no one will ever be able to stop a talented artist. There will always be someone capable of saying no to the profound stupidity of humans, and instead saying yes to the possibility of a change, of a world different from this one. The dream of an ancient hope can never be completely extinguished..
Loading comments slowly
