Folkabbestia
Non è mai troppo tardi per avere un'infanzia felice

It's the taste of distant lands, it is a gypsy sound, folkloric, colorful with a thousand and more colors...it's a violin solo that pierces your heart.

In a musical era made of pre-packaged sounds, computers increasingly taking center stage, and hyper-technological instruments (mind you, it’s not that I want to stop progress) it's nice, every now and then, to enjoy an energetic yet "ancient" sound like the one that, since 1994, the Folkabbestia have been pushing with more and more passion, craziness, and vitality. Technically speaking, the Folk are musicians with a capital M, rivaled only by Elio & Le Storie Tese, from whom they stole, in 2003, the spot in the Guinness World Records by playing the same song for 30 consecutive hours; the titles of their albums are true semi-philosophical pearls of wisdom and absurdity: "Seme" (1996), "Breve saggio filosofico sul senso della vita" (1998), "Se la rosa non si chiamerebbe rosa, Rita sarebbe il suo nome" (2000), "Non è mai troppo tardi per avere un'infanzia felice" (2003), "Perché 44 date in fila per tre col resto di due" (2005) and "25-60-38" (2006)... Bandabardò? Yo Yo Mundi? Casa Del Vento? Modena City Ramblers? Well, not exactly, but something more.

All six are excellent albums, no doubt about it, but one above all struck me, like a stone behind the neck, that is, "Non è mai troppo tardi per avere un'infanzia felice", dated 2003; an album that is folk from head to toe, with incursions of ballroom and tango that never spoil, so much so that, from the first song (excluding the intro), "La festa di Gigin", we can already imagine a stage in a small seaside town square, the lights of the Workers' Day, the serene, joyful, and relaxed atmosphere, the stalls with local products and sweets...a very cheerful yet at the same time moving piece. "Rosa velenosa" is an exceptional song mainly thanks to the wonderful and unique violin of Fabio "A Repetiscion" Losito and the untiring accordion of Pietro Santoro; the rhythm shifts over a thousand and more variations accompanying the simple yet never raucous and imprecise voice of Lorenzo "Lollomanna" Mannarini.

Songs dedicated to the South, to the homeland of our "folkloric artists," are not missing; nor are songs like "Qui si campa d'aria", a real anthem to the sunny lands of Southern Italy, to the genuine happiness of the people living there and to a unique and magical climate; the lyrics, slightly ironic, are perhaps some of the most beautiful in the entire work ("why did you put those streetlights, if there is the Moon for lighting" or "in the South we live on air, we do not need oil, we do not need the poor uranium, we do not need generically mortified foods"), a true shout for independence! Neither are songs focusing on social issues absent, but not a politicized social aspect, rather, a social aspect that tells and knows how to tell true stories; "Io sono qui" in this sense is a piece full of meanings, dreams of hope, encouragements to never give up, a piece musically steeped in tradition, clean and, importantly, beautiful and moving to listen to; quoting: "I saw Genoa up close, and the Genoese on the windowsill, I saw war in a garden and my photo on a newspaper".

If you are looking for a beautiful virtuoso instrumental, "Dalla Moldavia col furgone" is definitely for you, beautiful because without words it manages to tell a story; again Fabio Losito, on the violin, does his damned dirty work to perfection. Cheerful, carefree, and also very catchy, "La fiera della vanità", will surely satisfy everyone, while "Andersen", a piece in "old western" style, complete with cowboy shouts, more than honors a great folk album; quoting again: "it's one in the morning, everything is fine, the Moon is a comma in the sky" or "there's a child sending an adult to bed, the story begins like this".

I highly recommend "Non è mai troppo tardi per avere un'infanzia felice" to anyone who needs old, nostalgic, and allegorical songs! I truly recommend it with all my heart...

p.s.
For those who want to know more, and I assure you it’s worth it, www.folkabbestia.com

p.p.s.
The hippies of Folkabbestia are right...it's never too late to have a happy childhood!

p.p.p.s.
The ghost track is worth the whole CD!