Giancarlo Onorato
Falene

This is a beautiful album. Probably, the above opening wouldn't be the best solution to start a review that, from my point of view, should lean more towards geometrical precision than literary excursions, but it's also true that listening is an operation that only superficially can be reduced to a physical, physiological discussion and it engages parts of ourselves we aren't even aware of, not to mention that studies on the perceptual phenomenon increasingly highlight the importance of the modifications our consciousness induces on the percepts, i.e., the information we receive and learn.

All this in an attempt to restore some rationality to a subject overwhelmed by the tumult of emotions stirred by Gianluca Onorato's album, which is almost a sort of cathartic anabasis that restores purity and clarity to the soul with the crystalline depth, the gentle disturbances of its musical progress. Onorato's writing is enriched with collaborations from artists like Mario Congiu (Artistic Producer of the album) Paolo Benvegnù and Anna Lamberti Bocconi on the lyrical side; but above all, the fundamental presence of Lorenzo Monguzzi and Piero Mucilli (aka Mercanti Di Liquore) avoids the sense of coldness and calculation that could burden the work of a sophisticated musician, igniting rhythmic pulsations that are vibrant but not invasive, to prevent a closure in the singer's self and direct it towards a more meditated reflection on the present. The work is dominated by a constant reference to water as a primordial element, with all the symbolic significance that such a semantically rich term carries, and on an auditory level, there's a sensation of being immersed in a calm and still lake whose surface occasionally stirs and mixes; water also as a reflecting mirror and luminous vector that attracts moths, today's lost men, adrift searching for a goal to aim for (I am thirsty cries Giancarlo in the intensely powerful "Sete"). It's impossible to cite the best chapters (tracks like "Le bisce d'acqua" "Ballata dell’estate sfinita" "Pace di guerra" "Androide Mirna" "Un morbido silenzio") in a work that magically balances on the wire of emotionality, desperate beauty, pain, and joy of past years looked at with affection. Today peeks through in tracks like "Pace di guerra" (probably De André would have written Khorakhané like this if he had experienced Giancarlo Onorato's journey) "Mia neve" "Aneroide Mirna"; but like all works we call art, this also has the ability to narrate the contemporary starting from individuality, making it universal and expressing everyone's restlessness. It is then a treasure chest of sounds, chimes, pulses, rustles that renew and rebirth with each listen, that first say one thing and the next time negate it and leave you astonished.

If you haven't understood... an album to have. p.s. whether because I'm an idiot or just can't manage to find the FreeDB link, here are the tracks 1. Le bisce d'acqua 2. Il bene e il nulla 3. La sete 4. Boncourage 5. The bossanova sweet menage 6. Ballata dell’estate sfinita 7. Pace di guerra 8. Mia neve 9. Aneroide Mirna 10. Canzone dell’oscurità 11. Cronache di primavera 12. Un morbido silenzio.