Ianva
Italia: Ultimo atto

Is there neo-folk in Italy? No, but there are the Ianva.

The Ianva, born in 2003 by the will of Mercy, singer of the Genoese prog band Malombra, reach 2009 with this "Italia: Ultimo Atto" as their third effort (after the stunning debut "Disobbedisco!" and the EP "L'Occidente"), confirming a conceptual and qualitative consistency that aspires to be more than just the result of a temporary experience.

The Ianva collective (which counts as many as nine members, assisted from time to time by a crowded array of musicians and collaborators) is in effect a certainty and a guarantee of quality in today's Italian musical undergrowth: this second (beautiful) full-length confirms the good things expressed in the past. But not only that, one could speak of a project that aims programmatically to serve a revival of what has been our country's musical heritage, often snubbed (if not despised) by the alternative and intellectual environments that often suffer from an irreducible xenophilia. An artistic expression that the protagonists themselves define as "archeo-futurism," intending to recover the past to outline a new future.

It is obvious that behind such a lofty manifesto lies the passionate disappointment for the cultural and value degeneration that our country has experienced since the post-war period. Nothing new under the sun, then, only the indisputable fact that our own are able to contextualize within the borders of our country what has been preached for years by the tutelary deities of the genre: a message that translates not only on a lyrical level ("Disobbedisco!" dealt with the Fiume story, "Italia: Ultimo Atto" aims, more ambitively, to retrace the last seventy years of national history), but also and above all on a musical and stylistic level. If neo-folk, in the strict sense, is no longer at home, as it was already clear from the debut, in this new work the umbilical cord with the genre is definitely cut, to make room, consistently with the principles that animate the project, for the wide cauldron of national light music (actually "very heavy" when compared to the elementary thinking it conveys today), with a focus (how could it be otherwise?) on the Genoese singer-songwriter scene of the sixties and seventies: Luigi Tenco, Gino Paoli, Bruno Lauzi and (how could it be otherwise?) Fabrizio De André, obviously the most present, not because mentioned, but because part of the same cultural DNA of the band.

Genoa, a city of contrasts, forced between sea and mountains, in perpetual struggle with gravity, climbing on the slopes, articulated in narrow alleys, steep climbs and descents, where ugliness coexists with nobility, smallness with grandeur: it always comes back to that. Before even stopping at a mere ideological approach, one should take into account the city that generated these artists to understand the actual value of the band. A band whose artists, as in their hallucinatory city, can harmoniously coexist with different, often contrasting styles and genres: light music, committed singer-songwriter music, the progressive tradition of the seventies, a cinematic impact that continuously recalls names like Ennio Morricone and Stelvio Cipriani. Without disdaining flashes of Anglo-Saxon neo-folk, martial sounds, the gothic armamentarium provided by formations like In The Nursery, the lyrical inspiration of protagonists of existential malaise such as Scott Walker, Peter Hammil, and Marc Almond, always cited as fundamental sources of inspiration.

If we then consider that the entrance into the band of Stefania T. D'Alterio (journalist, essayist, and singer) has brought back names like Mina, Ferri, Milva, and Berté, we can have an even more comprehensive picture.

Thus, an anachronistic proposal, that of the Ianva, which nevertheless finds extraordinary stylistic and conceptual consistency, suspended (paradoxically) between decadence and arditism, dimensions in some ways at the antipodes: a balance, an artistic and (above all) content value that goes (and must go) beyond ideological prejudice and the pretentiousness of intentions, the dripping rhetoric.

The pretentiousness of intentions, the dripping rhetoric: although with this latest work our own intend, as already mentioned, to retrace a large slice of our country's history (from 1943, to be precise, to the desolate present day), the result is not (as easily predictable) ridiculous. Certainly, Mercy and company do not lack the confidence and audacity to undertake such an endeavor, but for once smugness, skill, and professionalism go hand in hand.

Professionalism, another fundamental element to give (should there be any doubts) an extra chance to the Genoese ensemble, which can tell a story of almost 70 minutes without allowing themselves a (I say one) smudge or moment of slackening/verbosity: the album, therefore, does not shine only with inspired songwriting and lyricism, but also with excellent staging, starting from the refined arrangements, the orchestration of the numerous instruments employed, the meticulous attention to detail (look at the frequent sampled sounds and voices that dot the essentially acoustic composition of the album), the perfection of the sounds, up to the elegant packaging of the product, complete with texts, footnotes, and vintage photos.

There remains only one issue: pomposity. Thus, even those who, putting aside ideological prejudices, the prejudices nourished by a proposal that draws heavily from the much-maligned tradition of Italian light music, should finally come to terms with instrumental pomposity and lyrical emphasis that can prove, to say the least, monstrously affected, cloying, conceited. And I do not deny that at times there is no escape from involuntary slides into "cartoonish." But here I stop, precisely where, inevitably, personal tastes come into play.

Let's finally get to the content: the introduction is dedicated to the apocalyptic prophecies of Pier Paolo Pasolini, whose thinking (extraordinarily current) comes to life through the emphatic narrations of Enrico Silvestrin, on a piano base and dark environmental disturbances. Roby Calcagno's epic trumpet bursts in, which will dictate the law for the entire duration of the album: it is the impetuous opener "Dov'eri tu quel giorno?", a seven-minute ride in which the pressing rhythms transport the heavy and dramatic baritone singing of Mercy in an intense and impetuous journey that has as its own big bang that fateful date that is September 8, 1943. Will follow chaos, the upheaval of bombings, ruin, and rubble, civil war, reconstruction, economic boom, years of lead, scandals, state massacres, up to the flattening of the eighties and nineties: a path that culminates with an already-consumed title track, which comes redundant and predictable, given the clarity of the premises, which could only lead to such an epilogue. All narrated in a crystalline manner to the pace of heart-wrenching ballads (especially "Galleria delle Grazie" and "Negli Occhi di un Ribelle"), bursts of "noir cabaret" (the fantastic performance of D'Alterio in "Luisa Ferida"), and enchanting, solemn instrumental interludes (the bombastic "Cemento Armato" among others). All of this reread in a romantic and passionate perception of history that adopts as its starting point the mirage of an idyllic and legendary era (the early 1900s) dissolved in time, mocked, forgotten: a vision that ends up being the basic assumption that one must necessarily accept to embark on such a listen.

It would then be interesting to analyze the individual stages that determine this impetuous and drama-filled descent into the Inferno of Italian history, but it would seem to take too much away from the taste of surprise and discovery that such a journey can offer.

A single piece of advice: approach Ianva purely and free from all kinds of prejudice. You will be surprised.