Juri Camisasca
La Finestra Dentro

THE REVIEW

"In my body there are sewers/everyone calls them veins/but inside there are rats running": with these words, in 1974, an unsettled Milanese musician, Juri Camisasca, discovered by Franco Battiato, made his debut - masterfully produced by him - with this first work, today almost impossible to find, "La finestra dentro", a singular album that is difficult to classify, closer to prog than to singer-songwriter music, shocking and disturbing from the first to the last note.

Camisasca's lyrics, raw and visionary, express a strong existential unease, and are often heightened by hallucinatory performances, as in the opening "Galantuomo", dissonant and obsessive, in which the protagonist, tormented by his own negativities (the rats), seeks refuge in self-destruction.

The theme is revisited, with more subdued tones, in the gentle interlude of "Ho un grande vuoto nella testa", before returning to claustrophobic atmospheres with two surreal nightmares: in the acoustic and hypnotic "Metamorfosi" (very Kafkaesque), a man, transformed into an insect, flies towards an illusory and fatal freedom. Things are no better for the protagonist of "Scavando col badile", who finds himself at the center of the earth, in a hell where animals dominate humans. Here Camisasca and the musicians (the same ones from Battiato's early albums, here with the VCS3) create a shimmering soundscape that leads to shadowy worlds. Following these hallucinations is "John", a hyper-realistic description of an encounter, grotesque and touching, with a friend reduced to being a transvestite: it is one of the most intense moments of the album, thanks to the alternating acoustic and electronic atmospheres and Juri's gritty voice.

The solemn and poetic "Un fiume di luce", is the only moment of hope on the record, an illumination that, in the grand finale of "Il regno dell'Eden", becomes a mystical delirium, in which the protagonist, identifying with God, is doomed to create and go mad for eternity: here, the guitars and the VCS3 paint an ethereal and sinister watercolor, culminating with celestial choirs, ending with a crazy nursery rhyme that seems sung by a man in a state of regression to childhood.

Thus, between lucidity and madness, "La finestra dentro" closes, one of the most courageous journeys into the depths of the human psyche ever attempted in music, which, while severely testing the ears, heart, and conscience, fascinates with its disconcerting modernity and musical richness, revealing new details with every listen.