Bachi Da Pietra
Non Io

The best Italian album of 2007. Did I manage to capture your attention? Sorry for the introduction, but it’s not a joke. Moreover, if I already wrote that the Bachi Da Pietra’s concert was the best I saw in 2006, it was inevitable that their new album would be considered by me the most beautiful of the current year. I state this in November, but I am comforted by the fact that someone, crazier than me, had already declared it in April when it was released.

First of all, a bit of information for all those who avoided my previous review. The Bachi are two: Bruno Dorella, an immeasurable protagonist of the Italian indie scene, Ovo and Ronin, just to name two, on drums, and Giambeppe Succi, former Madrigali Magri, on vocals and guitar. Nothing more. They released their first CD together in 2005, and it’s called "Tornare nella terra"; this is the second, and it was released thanks to a co-production between Wallace Records, perhaps the most interesting Italian label in recent years, and a new Milan-based entity named Die-Schachtel. Audioglobe distribution.

So, you know how to get it, but you don’t know what’s inside. I could say blues and leave it at that. But then you would ask: what kind of blues? Johnny Lee Hooker or Blind Lemon Jefferson? Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters? Let’s try: 21st-century blues, deconstructed as imagined in these years by Tom Waits or Nick Cave. With a keen eye on certain American alt-rock singer-songwriters, I think of Will Oldham and perhaps more, Bill Callahan. All this in Italy? Indeed, yes. Will you allow me this? Post-blues.

The essentiality of the compositions is expressed with light guitar touches and sparse drum movements. Everything appears improvised and mathematical in its (im)perfection. The sound is both flat yet enveloping, thanks to a magical use of reverb. There are no other effects, except the surprise of the unspeakable. From these songs emerges the smell of the earth, an earth that is dug, overturned, and finally burned. Succi's voice, it’s neither sung nor spoken, is a rasp, I must repeat, and it whispers desolation and unease, increasingly fading. One of the fascinating traits of his lyrics is the rural, non-metropolitan scenario described.

“The foundation is not level, the ceiling leaks rain, the boards do not fit, the windows do not close, do not open, the walls rot, the joints do not hold, the supports fail: wrong measurements. Tools, inside and outside the gate, outside and in, the sound of the engine on, the sound of the engine off, the hammer, you can't stay here I think: the beams do not hold, the boards bend, borers gnaw at it, rats invade it, and in the corners, nests of spiders, colonies of bedbugs: mistakes and imbalances. Go automatic with the ATM, ten liters of gasoline in a can, greet an acquaintance, get in the car, smile at your drastic solution. This wooden house you watch burn opens up other roads.”

Yes, the best Italian album of 2007, in my very humble, but honest, opinion.