Faust'o
Suicidio

Imagine a city street as your backdrop, long and straight; it's night, the yellow lights of the lampposts above are softened by fog and exhaust fumes. Cars in line, expressionless glances, open or hidden malice. A harsh ring, a child's cry, a diabolical laugh: here is 'Suicidio', the debut work of Faust'o, known in life as Fausto Rossi.

We are still dealing with the damned 1978 and the stench polluting the air is really strong. "Don't open the window, I don't want to hear what they have to say. Don't send me down with them, no!" proclaims the author in the title track, supported by a melody washed in punk and Berlin-era Bowie. Yes: there's a no-future coming out forcefully from the grooves. The new world is at the door and it promises nothing good, the past is a desert that no longer offers watchwords; the present is a market, someone else would say a few years later. What remains? Pleasure, perhaps. Because 'perversion is your last chance', the key to escape a new conformity. But we are light years away from 'free love', from the utopias of Parco Lambro, from 'liberate everyone'. Sex is coercion, renunciation, uncertainty. There's no square, cities are traversed by 'Bastards' "cowardly like razors", by human refuse who await the night to spew blood on the 'sons of shit' clogging the day. And Faust'o sings, yells, whispers, declaims, biting and sorrowful, always perfectly plausible, over arrangements that have little to do with the Italian song but lean more towards a distracted punk (Il mio sesso), a cold rock (Bastardi; Benvenuti tra i rifiuti), and various madness (Godi; Eccolo qua) that will evolve in the immediately following albums into a personal new wave.

An exceptional debut for a wholly unique author in the Italian panorama within which it's sincerely difficult to find similarities. The resonances are rather to be sought in the Anglo-Saxon world, not only musically, but also for the interpretation and manner, light years away from the 'bel canto' and almost awkward austerity of many of our authors. Return to the street, the yellow lights, the fog, and exhaust fumes. Suddenly something moves, the cars shift into gear, the faces seem, for a moment, to calm: "Thank you God! It's not so bad, but I would have also hoped for a bit of sunshine. Thank you God! It's not so bad, but I would have also hoped for a place in the sun!"