Franco Battiato
Come un cammello in una grondaia

After the playful "cazzara" Jovanottian interlude, we return to seriousness. With a noble, austere album.

Battiato, after the release of "Fisiognomica" (1988), leaves Milan after 23 years, the city that welcomed him and made him famous: here he recorded his best-known "omnia" work, from "Cinghiale Bianco" to "La voce del padrone," from "Mondi lontanissimi" to, as mentioned above, "Fisiognomica." He returns to Sicily, his homeland. And he also changes his musical coordinates; after a decade juggling between pop and the most extreme singer-songwriter genres, he picks up those musical and philosophical passions that have long been dormant. From here on, Battiato will accustom us to this: alternating, perhaps somewhat inconsistently, between "high" and cerebral albums and others that are more accessible and national-popular (see "L'imboscata," 1996, which will bring him back to (high) charts after years of oblivion).

The first example of this new Battiato is, indeed, "Come un cammello in una grondaia," released in the autumn of 1991. The title refers to a concept expressed by a Persian scientist, Al-Biruni, who in the 11th century used this phrase to indicate the inadequacy of his language in describing scientific topics. And that’s already a great start. The work, despite our return to Sicilian soil, takes place between Castelfranco Veneto (where the legendary Battiato collaborator Giusto Pio resided) and London. Incredibly but true, despite the philosophical intellectualism of the lyrics, the figure of Manlio Sgalambro is still far away, active alongside the Sicilian songwriter only from 1995.

I confess that I hadn't listened to the album reviewed here for many years, and I only remembered the famous "Povera Patria." Re-listening to it, I was disappointed: it lasts 32 minutes but feels like triple, it has a Luciferian heaviness. In the sense that our artist, wickedly, challenges the listener with a side A that is very cultured and singer-songwriter-like, and a side B composed solely of lieder by Wagner, Martin, Beethoven, and Brahms. Exactly. Musically, the album has a glaring flaw: all the songs sound alike, so similar and "flat" (musically, as I said) to each other. It's as if our artist wanted to erase his '80s pop imprint and wanted to start the new decade from scratch, a bit like happened at the end of the '70s. Only this time there’s no white boar, but a camel grotesquely planted in a gutter.

Of the first 4 compositions on side A, apart from "Povera patria" (which is very beautiful, but very much, underneath, elusive: it's a ruthless portrait of Italy that could fit 1991, as well as 1971, as well as now), "L'ombra della luce" stands out, a very robust secular prayer that Battiato wrote, it seems, after six months of meditation and asceticism. Emotions, even the most sincere ones, Battiato warns, are an emanation of a light upon which, always, a long shadow covers everything, even the purest feeling. Light is a philosophical concept often at the center of everything in Eastern religions.

From Wikipedia: "Battiato, known for his curiosity towards mysticism, Eastern philosophy, and spirituality, integrates a vision in this song that transcends the mere earthly experience, alluding to an ideal of transcendence."

A wonderful piece, had it been included in "Fisiognomica," next to "L'oceano di silenzio," it would have been a masterpiece. Just like "Le sacre sinfonie del tempo," and its countless earthly lives, experiences that do not begin and end with human mortal life but continue beyond, or even before. The title track is a bit less interesting: perhaps with these two songs, the singer-songwriter had already said everything. Who knows.

Side B is a tear-jerker. In it, Battiato sings in German, French, and English. French I don't know, as I don't speak it; I don't know German either but have a friend who does, and I know English. I can say that Battiato's pronunciation is, at times, impossible. But then what was he thinking by adapting 4 works from the 18th/19th centuries to which he "gifts" (so to speak) a very linear and flat musical backdrop that seems recycled from the previous 4 songs. For instance, the London Orchestra, which plays here, seems almost an unnecessary embellishment to Battiato's protagonism, who sings, sometimes recites, then interrupts himself, resumes, and never "captures" the listener, rather, pushes them away with that unbearable taste of someone who snubs the masses by posing as a highbrow philosopher. Which, after all, he has always (a bit) been, but it depends on how: this way it's snobbery not worthy of such a cause. It must be said that the year before he had written a soundtrack for "Benvenuto Ciellini," a TV miniseries; in 1992 he stages a two-act show, "Gilgamesh," at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, and in 1994 he presents in Assisi, in the namesake Basilica, an opera offering a personal interpretation of the parts that make up a Mass, titled, of course, "Messa Arcaica." In short, he was in that period, and he didn't care much about the listener: he goes straight on his path.

Different times, so much so that it also sells well. The album receives the Critic's Award for "Best Record of the Year" and sells 250,000 copies (parbleu) and Battiato, jack of all trades, also handles the cover. The large camel depicted is attributed to a mysterious Suphan Barzani, pseudonym of a very young Battiato who signed himself this way.