Non Voglio Che Clara
Hotel Tivoli

THE REVIEW

An intriguing (non)acoustic place without any distinct audio-temporal location: Hotel Tivoli. Quartet from the Treviso area, Non Voglio Che Clara, presents its shadowy and mellifluous accomplished debut through the "Small but well-crafted Pop Label" Aiuola Records. From the personal and often more than sentimental, concise and fleeting (not even 25 minutes) audio-chest erupts a sophisticated yet significant sobriety in writing, accompanied by remarkable and refined musical-expressive grandiloquence: qualities that are almost rare (if not untraceable) among the new ranks of the often empty, tricolor singer-songwriter pop scene.

The seven tracks pleasantly intersperse the residing little work in question; vocal tones that are very intimate and passionate, increasingly whispered yet polite, sound-atmospheres that are rarefied, velvety and at the same time admirably intense, composed of elegant and translucent layers filled with soft and subdued, tender rhythms: the instrumental work unfolds and unravels wonderfully between sporadic doses of soft and moderate piano, elegiac woodwind and string punctuations, gentle guitars (both acoustic and not) and (sparingly struck) percussion; all gently caressed, often only just brushed with skillful and thrifty sonic-intelligence: "Quello con la telecamera" (despite the non-transcendental title) is one of the most pleasant tracks heard in this field for ages. It almost seems like having the chance to savor and/or listen for the first time to a classic singer-songwriter "album from times gone by" that has resurfaced by chance from some dusty and obscured attic chest: the subliminal references are to the entire (the impeccable, of course) POP tradition (not only) of our land: Mina - covered moreover in one of her lesser classics - Paoli, Tenco, of whom they declare an unabashed love, and the entire luminous lineage of the singer-songwriterism of times past has meant more than something in the artistic and writing formation of the four sonically-graceful Bellunesi.

They draw vital essence from what is mentioned above but (and fortunately) they skillfully do not resort to, much less limit themselves to, sterile recycling or slavish copying of their muses (listen, in this sense, to the clear and softly jazzy "Il Nastro Rosa"): a vintage fresco in soft hues (let's say so) revitalized (today) in its discernible refined expressive formula. Now dating back to the first half of 2004, the "Tivoli" debut, aujourd'hui, can be considered as a fascinating calling card for the new full work, announced for next March 2006: in the (probable) case the stunning premises posed in the aforementioned succinct disk are maintained over the long distance, we might find ourselves close to an unexpected and truly happy, intense "off-program" in the agonizing, Sanremo-devastated, Italian pop scene. Do not tread on the flowerbeds (please).