Davide Van De Sfroos
Akuaduulza

LA RECENSIONE

Davide Bernasconi is a singer-songwriter who has made his dialect “the LAGHEE”, spoken on the west shore of Lake Como, the focus of his albums, which revolve around ballads, dance halls, village festivals, and stories of local characters.

But with this album, Davide finds the enlightenment that every artist encounters on their path, an album that to say is perfect both musically and poetically is an understatement.

This album talks about witches, sabbaths, macumbas, devils, sorcerers, legends lost over the years, remembered only by old villagers who loved to recount them on winter evenings.

The characters are all colorful, perhaps invented, maybe not, just like the stories told; it's up to you to decide if they are true stories or invented legends, but this is a secondary detail.

There is no lack of good blues told in the room of a prostitute, in the “El Paradis del scurpion.”

Hispanic melodies in “Madame Falena,” the violin in “Akuaduulza” is pure POETRY, “shymmtakula” is an absolute masterpiece, “fendin” is nevertheless the highlight of the album, and we even arrive in Minnesota with “rosanera,” a splendid tale, then “the crow,” “el baron,” “nona Lucia,” “prayer of the 4 leaves,” “caramadona,” “the ghost of uncle Gaetan,” “the magician's book,” and concludes with “the prisoner and the tramontana.”

In short, a blues album, dark, gloomy, and cheerful at the same time, both in lyrics and in music.

(from “shymmtakula”; every leaf stepped on has a roar and a whisper, every well-placed stone has a victorious silence, and supports my journey between traversing and thinking.)