Fabio Zuffanti
Pioggia e Luce

Uh-oh! Please note that this review also appears (in whole or in part) on http://www.marsigliarecords.it/m021.php

Autumnal Genoa of Zuffanti... Fabio Zuffanti ventures into his first solo album, although it is only a five-track EP released by the young label Marsiglia. First solo album because it is completely conceived on his own and without the involvement in the writing phase of his many companions in adventure.

A volcanic and eclectic musician from Genoa, at the helm of a multitude of musical projects for nearly twenty years, projects that include names like Finisterre, La Maschera di Cera, and Hostsonaten, which are the most important musical entities of the Italian neo-progressive renaissance of the Nineties, Zuffanti seems to move away from the progressive (and hormonal?) storms of his youth to reach a minimal, tight, wintry introspection, akin to the great poetry pages that only his Liguria has managed to write. Zuffanti's deep musical "self" sinks and resurfaces towards a diffused light over the snowy expanses of the Ligurian capital, landscapes that deeply inspired the musician to ask various questions about the intrinsic meaning of the icy, chilly, and somewhat electronic poetry blown by the cold autumn wind that then turns into winter. Twilight. Darkness. Everything is filtered through the lens of synthetic impulses, arpeggiated and effected guitars.

Feelings halfway between his projects Quadraphonic and LaZona, Fabio constructs landscapes soaked by a rainy day that diffracts the weak light of sunset, as happens in the title track "Pioggia e Luce". Also filtered is Zuffanti's twilight voice, which at times with a distant back-and-forth recalls a sort of "electronified" Lucio Battisti. Quick as a breeze, "La Treno" puffs by, arriving at the evening and melancholic station of "Ottobre." The latter is an honestly autumnal track, to be listened to on a rainy day behind the damp panes of a window with an anesthetizing view of the stormy sea, the waves of which "gnaw" at the foreshore of the Lantern... or any other port. Humidity that digs out and oxidizes the iron of daily life, sung in "Ruggine" by Zuffanti's Battisti-like lament, another small pearl of keyboard languidity. After that, "Il Deserto" of suppositions and electronic effects closes the door on the poetry of this little record.

It is incredible how Fabio Zuffanti has artistically matured in recent years, managing to pay homage to both the classic progressive that made music great in the Seventies and the new inner and minimalist impulses that make one reflect and look within oneself.

You can download the EP for free at http://www.marsigliarecords.it/m021.php or purchase a "real" copy on eBay http://tinyurl.com/yrf53n.