Amerigo Verardi
Morgan

Amerigo Verardi is an important figure in the Italian underground. Essential, I'd say.

A great career that began in the '80s with Allison Run and later with Betty's Blues, continued in the '90s with Lula (with whom he released two excellent albums: "Da dentro" of '95 and the self-titled '98 one) and in 2003 with the Lotus project. Alongside his musician activity, he also pursues that of a producer for some interesting bands in the Italian scene, such as Baustelle (the first two albums), Virginiana Miller, and Leitmotiv. If that weren't enough of a resume, he's also the author of two solo records, "Morgan" from 1993 (the subject of these following lines) and "Cremino e coca" from 1997.

"Morgan" represents Verardi's more '80s soul, the more pop and singer-songwriter side (with some ventures, albeit minimal, into psychedelia); there is sonic minimalism, but we barely notice it (Verardi handles "only" the lyrics, guitars, and vocals, while the rest is up to the multi-instrumentalist Ramon Brut), there's a desire to entertain and be entertaining, there's carefreeness.

And then, there's the music: "Om" is the opener with its nonsense, swiftly followed by the freshness and catchiness of "All those beautiful glasses shine" and "Dog Dylan's Blues", where you begin to sense the fun and carefreeness mentioned earlier; "My favorite things" is instead a pleasant acoustic ballad (notable work by Ramon on keyboards), "I make a lot of money" shakes up the rhythms of the work a bit (it would be reprised on the first album by Lula under the title "Faccio un sacco di soldi"), while "We can... on the water" is an excellent track supported by nice guitar passages and samplers, one of the album's most successful episodes, along with "It flies above you, Zorg", played together with Allison Run (Umberto Palazzo, founder of Santo Niente, was also part of this group) that lends greater robustness to the song.

This "Morgan" is an offbeat album. In the positive sense of the term, of course.
Certainly one of the most curious facets of Verardi. In short, over forty minutes of intriguing allure, highlighted by a more than strong personality.

And sorry if that's not enough.

For those who wish to delve deeper:

- All those beautiful glasses shine

- Dog Dylan's blues