Faust'O
Suicidio

Taking inspiration from the recent comeback of Massimo Volume, who in their excellent "Cattive Abitudini" include "Fausto," a song that very explicitly references one of the rock icons and major figures of Italian rock. Fausto Rossi (known as Faust'O), over thirty years since his musical debut, remains an enigmatic figure in some respects and is still fully to be discovered. Undoubtedly a precursor and starting point for a generation of young Italian artists who began their careers in the Eighties. The cover leaves little to the imagination; the plagiarism, the citation, the reverence towards Bowie's "Heroes" is blatant and hardly hidden.

The biennium of 1977/78 was a period of radical change for music. It wasn't just about punk, but a new musical conception that would draw its influences from various means of communication and societal customs. Everything that followed provided new outlets for music, with contaminations that would blossom in the years to come.

Italy also has its "heroes" from that period, figures who worked underground trying to bring to the Bel Paese what was commonplace in England and the States. Echoes of the white duke immersed in the Berlin period, of Lou Reed and the New York scene, of the nascent New Wave and post-punk scene - especially the beloved Ultravox! - the electronic and the glam-rock scene of decadent Britain like Roxy Music and its maximum leaders Eno and Ferry, are evident but are revisited and revised in a completely personal way, emerging as the incarnation of a new figure of the cursed poet. "Suicidio" by Faust'O is perhaps one of the best examples and portraits of the era, the late seventies, years that brought back the "stoned" dreams of a few years earlier with feet on the ground, where the punk-proclaimed no future seemed to prophesize itself even too early.

Faust'O offers a portrait of the world, bitter and irreverent, mocking everything and everyone, without mincing words and false moralism. Even though the author often dissociated himself from this debut, even going so far as to disavow it in certain passages and methods of realization, it cannot be said that the message of rupture did not come through loud and clear, spontaneous or not.

Certainly, Italy was not yet prepared to hear certain words, certain concepts, and certain critiques that wounded so irreverently. Perhaps an album like this would still struggle to be accepted and digested today. The sad destiny of being talked about only and solely as a "cult" artifact attests to this clearly, while it should, in fact, be considered among the best musical works (even more so, being a debut) to come out of Italy.

Nothing is spared; natural disasters, sex, religion, the malaise of living, vices, virtues, wealth, corruption. While on one side of Italy there was a Rino Gaetano using catchy choruses and excellent songs to deliver "strong" messages, on the other was Faust'O with his conceptual and scratchy lyrics and music so bare, nervous and raw, almost cold and detached but nonetheless always with a pop feel and sometimes almost theatrical.

Fausto Rossi was born in Friuli, and the citation of the earthquake that struck Friuli Venezia Giulia in 1976 in "Suicidio" is no coincidence: "I feel everything spinning around me is boredom, boredom, boredom. Even the earthquake now just gives me boredom, boredom, boredom". Faust'O analyzes an extreme and final gesture, connecting it to the malaise of living and the full nothingness of the surrounding society so much that a significant event that involved him closely is overshadowed.

Faust'O relies on the studio recording help of Alberto Radius, famous for his role in the band Formula 3, but above all a great guitarist and composer, also never properly praised, with production by Oscar Avogadro.

The theatrical tones of "Godi" are a spit in the face to the rampant moralism of Catholic society and to an Italy enslaved and repressed by the Vatican State.

"Godi, but in secret, in the bathroom, in the woods.
in the last place where God will see you!
No, don't worry, hide your hands
in the world of dwarves you are great too!
And be ashamed in the evening as you say a prayer
for the desire for bestiality!" 

There is then an explicit and direct attack on the strong powers, wealth, and the deriving and rampant corruption. The lyrics of "Bastardi" and the concluding "Benvenuti tra i rifiuti" need no further explanation. The lyrics are as raw and explicit as one can ask of songs of protest, all set to a sound background citing both post/punk and English glam rock.

"When night falls
and your dreams become heavy
rich, poor politicians
you are children of shit
we dig into the darkness
vomit blood on your truths!
Welcome to the waste
we won't drive you away!"
Uncomfortable words that perhaps no one had ever dared to pronounce so directly in a song before.

There is then the attempt to touch taboo yet delicate topics, trying to bring to light problems related to childhood and the morbid abuses from the adult world towards children. Marks to carry as enormous burdens throughout life.
"C'è un posto caldo" and "Piccolo Lord" are two wonderful mini pop/rock operettas. While the former talks about abuse and sexual deviance, the latter tells the sad life of a prodigious child forced to enliven the days of a well-off mother's friends. But the idea of rebellion, hidden and repressed, will spring in him and accompany him throughout life, not without regrets.

"Harry!!
play the piano a bit for us
come on, be good.
just one piece, come on!
Harry!!
play some Chopin for us
look how good he is
does he want some more tea!?"

"Il mio sesso" is another explicit song about the highly conflictual relationship between a man and his genital apparatus, often a true spiritual guide for better or for worse for the male sex. Sometimes prisoners and victims of something even the brain cannot control and tame, essentially the man who thinks with his crotch.

"My sex is often lonely
asks me for some help
but I feel as lonely as him
It's fragile and fearful
sad and silent
would like me to love it a bit more.
Often I need it, I vent on it
I'm afraid it's the opposite
that it is using me"

Faust'O baptizes (perhaps anticipated by only Tenco, but those were different times) and embodies a new generation of Italian singer-songwriter, decadent and cursed, little willing and inclined to bend to the nascent consumerist society that the eighties would produce. His view of the world is pessimistic, with little willingness to let rays of positive light in. He exposes the nightmares and visions of modern man, without falling into banality but using sharp language between slogans with a strong punk flavor and punches from burlesque theater and arrangements outside classic schemes. A germ of evil that insinuates itself in man from a young age, sowed by an adult world that reflects itself complacently in appearance and pretense, where Freudian sex is the ideal supporting role. The beauty is that Faust'O would continue to produce great music as early as the next musical step ("Poco Zucchero," 1979) a year later...