Andrea Laszlo De Simone
Uomo Donna

I think I have a serious problem with Italian music. A bit less with older music, very, I would say very much, with everything released in the last twenty years.

There is no real reason that keeps me away from Italian music; it's probably a mental glitch of mine. I started listening to music from a young age, and ever since I had the ability to choose, I've always listened to English music (it was very useful for learning the language). In practice, I condemn Italian music, but I hardly know it (also because I haven't listened to the radio in over twenty years). Regarding the pseudo-underground Italian scene of the last 10 years, I think I listened to 30 seconds of I Cani and Calcutta, and I'm still bearing the marks.

I've made this premise to drastically cover myself, as they say, because in the last month, among the sea of old and new records I'm listening to, this guy from Turin has forcefully made his way through, who looks like Frank Zappa. Not knowing anything about the current Italian scene, I don't know if I have made a blunder or if this enthusiasm is due to my ignorance of the area, but rarely have I been so captivated by such a long album (we're talking about 80 minutes for twelve tracks) with songs even lasting 12 minutes, full of complex arrangements and especially with someone singing about love, pain, and politics without too much fuss. It takes courage, in 2017, to sing aloud "Ti Amo, Amore" like in "Meglio", but Andrea does it, and it seems like the only right thing to sing.

Musically, we are in an interesting cusp between Italian songwriting (Battisti and Battiato of the '70s) and Anglo-Saxon rock of various origins (intuitively, I would say I Mercury Rev from "Deserter Song" but also a bit earlier, The Flaming Lips guitar-driven, post-Kid A Radiohead, The Beatles and some American sixties psych).

It's difficult to choose a track; I've already memorized them all, so any judgment of mine is tremendously clouded by the passion that drives me. From the political intro of "Gli uomini hanno fame" which sublimates a late '70s synthetic-analog rhythm, passing through Arthur Lee-style poetry of "Fiore Mio", to the almost disco metamorphosis of "Eterno Riposo". And above all, the difference lies in the details: the descending melodic line of the piano in "Meglio", the crescendo of choirs and handclaps in the background of the beautiful "Solo un uomo" or finally the noisy fury at the end of the epic "Vieni a salvarmi". Personally, the peak, both emotional and musical, is reached in the declaration of love towards no one in "Sogno l'amore", one of those tracks that can bring you back to the very core of your feelings, where there are no barriers, just the mirror of ourselves to reckon with, like it or not.

Probably the album of the year, certainly of the heart.