Garbo
A Berlino... Va Bene

A blank stare into the void, a carpet of keyboards.

Halfway between the Berlin period of His Majesty David Bowie and the misty Brianza Renato Abate, aka Garbo, makes his debut in 1981, as an answer to the doubts and anxieties of a generation raised amidst mass strikes and bombs in the squares.

Already tired of the usual Italian songwriting where the cultural references were already old in 1977 (Dylan, Brassens, Cohen), the new youngsters, still with their hair standing up from the past Italo/punk days spent in stinking small discos of the Italian province, embrace the new British trend: electronics and guitars.

The work starts strong, also due to media overexposure, and everyone wonders if they use a different calendar in Berlin... It's a pity because already in the second track, all the limits of a late-adolescent work become evident; especially because it tries to give itself a Central European breath with tracks recorded in English or German. The references to new dandism clearly emerge from the cover and the texts filled with dense fog entering through the windows and rain wetting the shoulders.

Garbo, like a leaf in September, will manage to stay attached to the branch of alternative music for a couple of years before getting lost in the intricacies of '80s pop, where in Sanremo, that ever-hated/loved festival, the winners will be Ricchi e Poveri, Tiziana Rivale, and Jalisse, leaving artists like Garbo or the more aristocratic Matia Bazar in roles as splendid supporting acts.

The best moments of the album are: "A Berlino va bene", "Anche a Milano va bene" and the autumnal "In questo cielo a Novembre", a song in which electronics skillfully mix with the use of the electric guitar. The work closes with the melancholic and brief "Lili Marlene", yes her, and the unnecessary "Mekong". Garbo seemed like the melodic and new romantic answer to the melancholy-anger* of Faust'o.

The album, reissued on CD in 2004, still tries to turn the song into authorship, but then Italian new wave will be massacred by the good Battiato. Garbo will enjoy a minimal amount of popularity in the following years also due to his participation in some Sanremo festivals, where he will always appear like a fish out of water.

CD edition liner notes:

"When I made this album, I was a boy full of dreams, but I never expected that some music would surpass for many others the barriers of fashions, of seasons that pass and erase even memories. I feel honored to see that my small gesture is still visible and audible on the table of time"

Garbo 2004

*Thanks to CPTGAIO for the adjective.