Eugenio Finardi
Fibrillante

"Fibrillante" by Eugenio Finardi, produced by Max Casacci of Subsonica, is an album of unreleased tracks (it's been a while since the Milanese singer-songwriter released one) rich in true songwriting. Here is a soul that shares with the world - in an uninterrupted stream of consciousness - both the self ("Aspettando", "Fibrillante", "ForteFragile") and his thoughts about the "other" ("Come Savonarola", "La storia di Franco", "Moderato"). Doing so with the naturalness that only someone who has always had certain thoughts can achieve, and not someone who, of which there are many very recent examples, considers them by studying at the table the best way to wink at current events like an instant book.

What convinces me least in this context are the lyrics of "Cadere sognare" (the story told closely reminds me of the one narrated in "Il Bonzo", a stunning track by Enzo Jannacci from 1975; here, however, the sense of irreverent and biting satire that permeated that piece is completely missing, thus slipping into an excess of rancorous lament) and "Me ne vado" (a sort of spoken-sung piece somewhat rhetorical in journalistic style about the world economic crisis and the growing income gap between the poor and the rich. Yet beautiful, however, is the delicate musical minimalism of the incipit that suddenly blossoms, albeit for a brief time, into a superb session of jazz in the style of "Diesel"!).

In my opinion, I don't deny, I may be influenced by the fact that - after too many excessively "social" and "engaged" songs listened to in the '70s as a young girl - this type of invective, although certainly sincere and heartfelt in the case of Finardi (one who already at a little over 20 knew how to write memorable ones), I find almost a "waste" of poeticity, of imagination, of narrative-evocative capability; qualities that Eugenio certainly possesses and that here shine, for example, in a touching and human track like "Lei s'illumina".

I fell in love with Finardi in middle school with "Sugo" and "Diesel", bought on LP when they were released with the glorious Cramps Records label and literally worn out. And if you don't look at that bearded and multicolored face, somewhat like a kind-hearted guru, that stands out on the cover, you can't quite capture the difference between the young man of then and the over-sixty-year-old of today: the agile, unmistakable voice is unchanged; a certain taste for dry and edgy arrangements (cultivated to the maximum degree in "Come Savonarola" and the title track) resurfaces powerfully after years spent experimenting with very different and beloved expressive modes, from fado to blues.

I find "Le donne piangono in macchina" particularly successful and engaging, a song that after "Lei s'illumina" sketches another moving female portrait - this time collective and not individual - sweet, generous, and yes, feminist (in the best sense of the term), somewhat in the vein of his memorable "Un uomo". After all, here the man Finardi, like few artists of our light music, once again proves capable of truly understanding women when needed.

Aside from those small social-rhetoric concessions mentioned above, there's still a beautiful, dense album in your hands, to be listened to and re-listened to with the pleasure of delving deep into every single song that only true songwriting can provide.