Gianfranco De Franco
Cu A Capu Vasciata

...And Here is a strange album, a non-album! ...FINALLY!!

Already from the cover I start to fantasize about what these strange drawings and squiggles are...!!
As a macho-man, I immediately see something with a sexual background, then after a while, a pipe... but we're still in the sexual realm (Freud would say).

But what the hell is on this cover? I begin to investigate and come across a kind of music video, wisely identified as a "CD-Trailer".
I like the idea, that fake film style in 16:9 ratio like an old Sergio Leone movie, gives a serious hand to low-quality photography and barely intelligible editing.
I invite you to watch it, the idea is interesting anyway!

"Cu a Capu Vasciata" (trans. With the Head Down) is a difficult album, difficult to listen to and it will be hard for it to carve out a space in a musical-trash moment like the one we're living in, where Sanremo is won by a certain Emma who "can't make it to the end of the month", followed by a fake redhead who "no longer believes in words" and a woman from Lucania still undecided between the old and overly-used Dandy icon and the attempt to enter the world of "cool girls" to which she really doesn't belong.
Back in 2007 I happened to see "Dissonorata", I don't remember in which Calabrian theater, I was stunned by the actor's performance, fantastic! It captivated me for more than an hour and I didn't realize the time passed nor what was around me besides the chair with "Pascalina"... and I would have wanted more of those "cunti".

The idea of making it into an album is courageous, and in the South, when it comes to courage in music, the guys from MkRecords arrive; more than courageous, by now, increasingly crazy, in the most positive sense of madness... A Praise...!
The Author of the music is Gianfranco De Franco, the same one who in the ensemble Mandara blew like a madman to keep up with the compositional whims of the Calabrian percussionist (in this album behind the mixer designing sounds).
In De Franco's album, there's a bit of everything he's been able to capture: from bands to experimentation, from theatrical minimalism to world music with openings to electronics and sound syntheses; the latter to be reviewed and internalized.

"Cu a Capu Vasciata" is a blown album, delicate and with its head down. An album on tiptoe. A barefoot album. An album from another time. An album - cultural operation. An album I like.
"...it is with delicacy, sensitivity, and grace that social redemption can be achieved", it's true! But also by standing up and shouting with your head held high...!

An excellent prelude to the next work "Cu a Capu Auzeta" (trans. With the Head Up) ... this time!