•
Rating:
Alright, it's the twentieth anniversary of De André's death, and personally, I'm already starting to have enough of it, even though we haven't even reached mid-January yet. So what could happen if I were to come across an album that drinks from Faber's source and elevates him to a saint from whom to seek ideas and inspiration?
Somewhere I read that we don't need saints, but heirs. Now, I don't believe that Giordano and Simone, the Trentino duo crafting the acoustic threads of this carefully crafted debut work, could ever comfortably fit into those shoes. Too many things to say and ideas to communicate, too much sincere passion in addressing current and therefore particularly thorny topics, with a genuine curiosity to understand - they as artists, we as the audience - where we are heading. Musically and culturally. However, it is equally undeniable that the style, the musicality, some literary resolutions, even the way of singing at times pleasantly remind us of him, especially when they take inspiration from "Storia di un Impiegato" and touch upon the metaphysical life events of "Vol. 8".
Despite the topicality of the themes, I come to know that the songs were composed in Berlin, mostly between 2016 and 2017. And indeed, a piece like Tecnocrate Europeo, the most successful of which there is also a nice performance available on YouTube, could only have been written in the Teutonic capital, although the Mediterranean air blowing here and there places it in a hard-to-define borderland, between a Vinicio Capossela and a transplanted Pino Daniele contemplating blues under the remains of the wall.
Simone is an excellent guitarist, and his strokes confidently weave between jazz and blues, light years away from those pseudo-American antics that still plague the training of many young Italian guitarists. His measured and crystalline touch only serves to enrich, and tracks like his Terre di Mare, Calze Nere, La mia strada, and the closing of Itaca benefit from it immensely. An album that so far hasn't received the visibility it deserves, undoubtedly penalized by the choice of an outdated style and the group's geographical origin. For some time now, Trentino has been suffering from provincialism and a latent inferiority complex when it comes to comparing itself with other Italian realities; but all things considered, the JCD overturns the premises and makes these defects the main strength of the album. Almost as if the spirit of the old frontier rock - Willie Nelson's country, Thin White Rope's desert rock - is translated by two young men grown up in a reality alternately forgotten and envied like Trentino. Too far north to be Mediterranean rock, too far south to embrace the Central European one.
There's much to listen to and even more to reflect upon after giving attention to this first attempt. Personally, I remain curiously on the sidelines, awaiting the next step.
Loading comments slowly
