Alice
Il sole nella pioggia

"The sun in the rain, or that natural phenomenon that in ancient Japan foretold ominous events or radical changes"

I approached this artist while listening to the introductory notes of "Visioni", the first single from the album released in the now distant 1987. I became passionate about Alice for her understated way of managing her career, her never banal musical choices supported by some of the best (niche) authors of Italian music. Nurtured by the longstanding collaboration with Franco Battiato in her early albums, more defined and concise with intelligent pop but now somewhat dated, Alice embarks on a series of new collaborations and musicians.
To chart the coordinates of the album, Alice collaborates with some of the leading figures in European avant-garde music, including Richard Barbieri, ex-Japan and currently a stable member of Porcupine Tree, Peter Hammill, S. Jansen, and our own Paolo Fresu, who infuses the entire album with the magical aura of his trumpet. She entrusts most of the compositions to "Juri" Roberto Camisasca during his most inspired period (having recently emerged from a 10-year monastic retreat).

The result of such intentions is an intense, enveloping album where the delicate rain that obscures us from the sun speaks to us of the inner and external human contradictions of our time, from the dreamed freedom of "the grass that moves in the wind" to our marked and cyclical paths in "Cieli del nord". From our lost yet still alive memory in the hermits of "Visioni" to the naive simplicity of "Le baccanti" washing their hair in the stream, unaware that the same water is traversed by nuclear submarines. The hermit from another spatial-temporal dimension bows at the feet of an already compromised world in "L’era del mito". Leading the way in this work is Alice's voice, at times delicate and reflective, at times powerful and evocative, which molds and absorbs the creative energy of the magical musical ensemble. The result is one of the most beautiful and refined pieces of music that has been brought to light (and I'm not just speaking of "Italian" music).