Cristina Donà
deSidera

Watching the stars is not wrong. Perhaps desiring a little more is.

These are thoughts that Cristina Donà has never hidden since the beginning, just consider songs like "Stelle Buone" and "Universo", and who hasn't had this kind of thoughts at least once recently? Maybe questioning one's reason for being in the world, relating to people, other human beings, objects, or the environment around oneself, what mark one leaves, what impact one has, how to remedy or at least try to be prudent, prudence often…

And it is precisely from these thoughts that Cristina Donà has chosen to start again, after the fruitful and happy experience in duet with Ginevra Di Marco in their joint album from 2 years ago, 4 years from the anniversary album of "Tregua", and 7 from her last intense recording effort of originals, which is the gem of "Così Vicini", which in 2015 earned her the Targa Tenco for the best song with "Il Senso Delle Cose", her second single extracted.

And for "deSidera", she repeats for the second time the lucky formula of Crowdfunding, which offered the album exclusively for listening to the undersigned, who was able to listen to it, analyze it, capture it, and appreciate it in all its forms, with awareness and consideration.

We were saying that it starts again from the concept of stars and desires, of which the etymological title is already an example: "deSidera". Deliberately written that way, in order to fragment and decompose the two terms first, to analyze their individual parts and meanings, to reassemble them with all the new intentions of the case afterward.

And she chooses the color blue. A seemingly melancholic, calm, or reflective color. But determined, strong, and penetrating in its intensity. And although only betrayed by the minimalist, very white, and essential cover, there is a lot of blue in this record. It permeates from every pore of the album. From the graphics, the CD, the vinyl itself, the inserts, the booklet. And from the sounds, the choice of sounds, the arrangements, and especially the lyrics themselves, a fundamental key to enter this new universe of hers. And who better than her now trusty travel companion Saverio Lanza to embark on this new journey among the stars?

The dances begin with a whistle that serves as an intro to "Distratti", the first track of the album, a gradually increasing intensity until the movementistic explosions of the choruses, magically rendered by Saverio's "prehistoric electronics", where among scraps and waste of our consumerism, we continue to be distracted, emotionally and ethically.

It continues with "Colpa", a very successful Triathlon updated to 2021, in which she lashes out against those who use guilt to wash their hands of responsibilities, personal and otherwise.

"Conto Alla Rovescia" is the hypnotic lullaby of expectation, "Desiderio" the ravenous impulse in 4/4.

It reaches the central part where "Come quando gli alberi si parlano" appears, probably the thematically strongest track of the album, in which based on a story actually witnessed by Cristina herself, it deals with the theme of love suicide, "Torna", the brisk pace of the constant return of events, actions, things, and words, and "Senza fucile nè spada", a perfect metaphorical snapshot to recount the unfortunately still very current lockdown days to the virus that managed to bring an entire planet to its knees with nothing, like a war without weapons.

The winds of the stormy "Oltre" move, the hikikomori perception of division, wanted or imposed, of interpersonal relationships due to our self-limits, and then close the album with the touching and delicate "L'Autunno", a contemplative song on the sense of vital cyclicality that every seasonal change brings in autumn, and the unbalanced and awkward "Titoli di coda", stale awareness of the end of a relationship seen with spectator eyes in a cinema, where you find yourself the only ones left in the room while everyone else has already gone.

And so, at the end of the listening, after the journey through the stars, the desires, the world, and ourselves, one returns to one's chair, to one's starting point, finding oneself with the adventures and the shivers left by these 10 songs, with the full and concrete awareness that in the end, Cristina is simply there, where she has always been, where she needed to be, and had to be at this moment, in this present. Never was her best calling card to re-present herself in the Covid era more appropriate than this. Definitely one of the Albums with a capital A of this fateful decade just begun worth a listen before dying, and probably her creative peak to date.