Daniele Silvestri
Il Dado

THE REVIEW

One of the best Italian musical productions of 1996 comes from Rome; it originates from some live performances in a venue, indeed in "Il Locale" on via del Fico, produced by Enzo Miceli and mostly mixed by John Grimes in Dublin. The tracks not mixed and recorded abroad were completed between the bathroom and kitchen of an apartment located in a large building overlooking the Tiber.

Roman of Rome, Daniele Silvestri, before becoming famous with this double CD, had already made a name for himself with a great debut album like "Prima Di Essere Un Uomo", which also included the song of the famous "Y10 Bordeaux".
The Dado is a truly beautiful and complete album, which played inside my stereo for years and years (sometimes even today I find myself whistling Cohiba). The Silvestri who presents this work is a very inspired singer-songwriter, still far from the Sanremo choruses and national success, and perhaps freer to explore and try many different forms of language without having to answer to anyone.

Classic rock (Seguimi), melodic pop song (Hold Me), homemade Hip-Hop (Sogno-b), very well structured and composed songwriting (Via Col Vento), songs on the edge of comedy à la Elio (Pino Il Fratello Di Paolo), a bass played by a then-unknown Max Gazzè, and the best Italian song of the second half of the nineties (Strade Di Francia) (this is clearly just my personal opinion, but I don't think I'm wrong).

The only flaw in this work is that on CD2 some songs are not quite up to par with those on CD1 and could easily have been discarded (that is to say, in this case, better one CD with 15 tracks than two with 18). The electric guitars alternate with computer-generated bases or country-party music as in "Banalità", supporting Silvestri's beautiful voice and his lyrics, which confirmed him that year as the most promising new Italian singer-songwriter along with Samuele Bersani.

In 19 songs, one goes from smiling, to sadness, to the desire to approach a stranger while standing in line at the post office to pay bills ("Samantha"), or the urge to drive all over Puglia at night in a car ("Me Fece Mele La Chepa").
This is an album to have and to preserve well. Even the de-baser could not fail to include it.