Davide Van De Sfroos
...E semm partii

THE STORMS OF A THOUSAND JOURNEYS
or the memories to pack before leaving

Premise: it's impossible to talk about Davide Van De Sfroos's stories better than he does himself, so instead of reading this "review," go to one of his concerts or buy one of his albums and read his lyrics.

Davide Van De Sfroos is a strange character who roams the docks and beaches of Lake Lario, telling many tales. He talks about sports bar characters, smugglers, tempestuous hallucinations, people who flee and others who return. In the first album, "Manicomi," he spoke of the asylum and some minor social paranoias, in the second, "Breva e Tivann," the dreams of characters from a ghost dance hall on the lake, and in the third, "E semm partii" (2001), the minstrel packs his suitcase of experiences and his guitar in the Laghee dialect and sets off into the world, in search of other contaminations and other stories.

The journey begins with the folk-ska of "El Bestia," a legendary son of the woods, feared and in love (Davide's laugh is irresistible... castigh del signur... hehe!), followed by "Sugamara," a sort of robber-adventurer (in my opinion, he's Sardinian like the Balentes, guest backing vocalists) who meets his son beyond the bank counter he's about to rob. For Sugamara, life is a rush like this accordion, so "what are you staring at?" and off he runs with the loot in one hand, a toy gun in the other, and big sunglasses from a Fiorenzuola highway rest stop covering his eyes and the past. You can't stop a die while it spins, nor can you stop the driving reggae rhythms brought by "Kapitan Kurlash," an alien superhero of this society caught in a loop.

We set off, and a "Trenu Trenu" takes us to the delta of the Missi-freaking-sippi, with a blues of heavy suitcases, photographs left on the tracks, plastic roses among the trash, and a deep, delirious, drunken slide (it's the slide of the great Gnola, bluesman of the delta... of Pavia!). "E semm partii" on an emigrant ship to America, bringing with us only two hopeful choruses, a mandolin, a good suit, many memories left on the pier, a lot of fear facing a stern face watching us from afar, from New York, where our great-grandparents wonder, "will the Liberty like us?". We briefly return to the lake with "Me canzun d'amuur en scrivi mai," poking fun at Ligabue's music with the story of a gardener in love with the lady of the house, a gardener who can't write love songs and blushes when she passes by, hiding among the flowers he wishes to give her, maybe with the backdrop of a nice "stuttering sun".

In the backlight of that same sunset moves "L'omm de la tempesta," the most Dylan-esque track on the album, and perhaps one of my absolute favorite songs, a song of escapes without looking back, fleeing like "an ant climbing the globe", storms held back behind clouds, predicted and unaccepted futures, eyes cutting through the skies of unknown countries. Entering the "Grand Hotel," we hear the village band (Banda Osiris, to be exact!) playing with skapunk from a thousand devilish horns, the illusion of love and the story of a family trapped in the prison of a busy job. From the ska windows of the Grand Hotel, we can see an old fisherman sitting on the hospice terrace, looking with wet eyes at a dry lake like his dentures, waiting for "El mustru" he saw many years ago to suddenly appear, when he was still the king of fishermen, not of the senile. But did it really exist, or is it just a memory hidden in the pill cup?

With this question, the rhythms calm but not the memories, and the "Television" contains many, as many as can fit in a dusty box with 50 years of history: the assassination of a president in Dallas, an Italian goal, a papal speech, a step on the Moon, and still wars, telequizzes, Sanremo, John Wayne... all the colors that this guitar paints under our eyes, as we sink into the couch mold shaped by our buttocks and drink in all the things they've wanted us to believe, and maybe it's time to turn off this television and dive into the night (excuse the expression from Lucignolo-Bellavita) of "San Macacu e San Nissoen". Quick acoustic emotions in this night of absurdities and delusions, a night of angels and devils, weary Madonnas and musician cats, autonomous shadows, and Batman in jail.
After playing our last ace with "La ballata delle 4 carte," behind which ghosts, candles, and smoke-filled eyes hide, it's time to set off again, this time towards the sky, launching together with the "Ladro dello Zodiaco" among the constellations, or again among the songs of Davide Van De Sfroos, perhaps toward the station, or among abandoned carousels, or simply chasing El Bestia or memories that won't fade in the mumbled words of an old man at the bar table, if we know how to listen with an attentive ear and open heart... that won't fade in the pure, acoustic wind of "Ventanas," the final track (intended as a path), shamanic nursery rhyme, a breath of peace and relief, a cathartic lullaby.

from "L'omm de la tempesta":
"And you can drink a thousand cups of chamomile
lock your thoughts in a bottle of white wine
a bowl is not enough for the storm
because the ink of every journey is in your blood...
... you will wander, oh stranger, around the world
but even the world will end somewhere
a storm is hard to hide
stay with me, and the storm will cease..."