Niccolò Fabi
Sereno Ad Ovest

Niccolò Fabi is one of the few Italian singer-songwriters who manages to achieve great public success while producing excellent music. Maybe it's his intellectual and mature demeanor, maybe it's his disarming frankness in writing songs, or perhaps simply because he's the best. Or perhaps because he truly knows the music of those who came before him: from the love for Alberto Fortis (whose father Claudio was the producer), to Bach, from "Breakfast in America" to Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Police. And all this is felt in his songs, full of truth and lightness.

This "Sereno ad ovest" stemmed from the need to shake off that image of a promising young man, loved by mothers as much as by daughters. And this need transformed into work done and played at home with very few technological means, packed with interesting ideas and typical reflections, but not obvious, of a young man just over thirty. Sure, there’s the catchy and pleasant single that you already like after the first listen ("Se fossi Marco"), but everything seems like a self-investigation into one's actions. Emblematic is the opening track, "Qualcosa di meglio", where Fabi humorously and without resentment addresses a girl ("I long begged for your smile because I'm enchanted by your teeth") and the beautiful "Sembravi", a true outburst caused by a dissipated friendship ("If I had known you would never have respected me, I would have spent much more time with your dog"). The enchanting "Acqua" reflects the state of mind of someone sitting alone with their own thoughts and torments, perhaps inadvertently recalling much more serious and larger issues like that of drugs ("Wine, I drink wine and swallow it, so I forget, I forget, I forget you"), while the captivating and compelling "Scherzo" exposes those who live with a deliberate double personality ("Joke, first you kill and then you say joke. You’re a jester with a knife in hand, I cannot play along with you... But is it really a game?").

In short, Fabi doesn’t mince words, he always speaks in the first person, conveying the conviction that while you're listening to him, you are his interlocutor. He knows how to be harsh, he knows how to be ironic, and he knows how to be wonderfully romantic like in "La politica" ("Politics is no longer the gymnastics of my ideas. It may be strange to say, but my only government is you") or in the faceless and "metallic, scentless" love of "Zerosei" (06 is the area code of his hometown, Rome). "Il mio stato", a track that truly closes the album worthily, is as frank and introspective as Fabi could write ("As much as I consider myself content for having foreseen and achieved my outcome, the color of my medals never matches that of my suit") with acoustic guitars in the foreground, as in much of the album, and a mournful and real voice that elevate the piece to very high-quality levels.

Without doubt, an excellent album, self-produced and almost entirely played by the Roman singer-songwriter (guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, and piano) that reveals its full beauty only after several listens, as the melodies and sounds are quite refined (note the rhythm of "Acqua"). Fabi writes great songs, but more importantly, he is one of the few who truly understands the concept of an album, following a logical discourse both sonically and lyrically that never really falls into the banality that still surrounds Italian and international music today.