Fabio Concato
Senza avvisare

Two years after the enormous success of the 1984 namesake, Fabio Concato offers his listeners a heartfelt work, born from the destabilizing phase experienced after the birth of Carlotta and the enormous, indeed, acclaim of the previous album. Ten tracks for Senza avvisare, whose title is taken from the first song, "Tanto per cambiare": «E ritrovarti qui/ senza neanche avvisare/ su questo treno in ritardo/ tanto per cambiare». The opening will return in 1999 in the opening track of Fabio Concato, aptly titled "Ritrovarti qui". Then there's the tenderness of "Prendi la luna," in an album where Fabio's jazz imprint begins to be pronounced. In fact, the next track, one of the best and most successful on the album, namely "Il bel pianista," is about a jazz orchestra, and the author addresses his friend Bruno. They still play it on the radio. "Camminiamo" in hindsight makes one think of tracks like "Canto d'amore," but here the mood is melancholic because it speaks of the loss of a love. The next one is a great gem that Fabio has spectacularly reprised after years (I saw him in concert in Ercolano, just near my house, complete with a photo before the concert!): "Prima di cena," a declaration on how he sang as a child, «inventando le parole/ storie buffe, un po' strane/ ma d'amore», almost a "Canto" part two. The first two tracks on side B of the Long playing are the most famous and also the most performed in concerts in the years to come. "Tornando a casa" is by now a classic, with "the tram of desires that goes" and a gloomy atmosphere that recalls the cover, a house lit from within... while "Ti muovi sempre," dedicated to Carlotta, lasts 2 minutes and 43 seconds and is delicate, with its acoustic guitar phrasing at the start. Emotional every time! In "Per cominciare," which would have been ideal as the opening for the entire work, given the title, it alludes both to "camminiamo" of the fourth song and to the kisses, a thematic leitmotif of this work of love, towards the woman and the children. "Il viaggio" anticipates by six years the beautiful 1992 album, but among the ten from this 1986 one, it turns out to be a little less interesting, while the great conclusion is entrusted to another track that remains among the dearest to Fabio's fans, "Rime per un sogno," beautifully written both for words and music, jazzy as well, where one travels with the mind across the world, between Milan, Bangkok, Paris, and New York.

Senza avvisare does not achieve the same success as the album of "Fiore di maggio" and "Ti ricordo ancora," but remains a good, interesting, and convincing work, at least 3.5 stars. Fabio will sing in English both "Tornando a casa" and "Prendi la luna" for Enrico Montesano's film "A me mi piace." Four years will have to pass, with an appetizer in 1988, to produce an album that will border on the masterpiece, and will have as its name one of the seven islands of the Tuscan Archipelago.