Paolo Benvegnù
Piccoli fragilissimi film

The effects and affections of Schisma's dissolution now all reside together in Mr. Benvegnù's violated diary.
Once inside, you penetrate a surface of gentle expositions steeped in sweet suffering, hermetic thrills, and poetic insights.
Here, the foundations of tiny narratives, expelled from a heart too often violated, blend.
Only now, in the face of such necessary premises, you are welcomed into the small, incredibly fragile films of the singer-songwriter (never before can he be considered such, eclectically drifting in the marshy and jagged wonders of the group of which he was the founder) and, it’s worth saying immediately, it's a very warm welcome.
An apparatus self-exploded. And inevitably reinstated after a morbid attempt to “reconstruct one's own being.”

So how to rebuild oneself?
To start with, by opening the dance with the vacuum symphony of “Il mare verticale,” the introduction and first peak of the entire record. The singer-songwriter's song as catharsis that starts reserved and reveals itself universally like a thorn that has repeatedly engraved (and engraves) bruises on our skin.
Then there would be, at the farewell of the first thrust, the imagery of the challenge with stone shards to be skipped across the river. Who hasn't tried it?
In that instant, distances shatter and you recognize each other, assures the author. I can only agree and succumb to the seduction of this other gem (precisely “Cerchi nell’acqua”).

Beyond, something can only be fantasized in a sense of masterful suspension. And it projects us into a faraway, intoxicating, and exquisitely unique nebula. I'm talking about “Io e te,” the third track of a path that will prove unexplored, mystical, and treacherous. There will be opportunities to exchange confidences in front of a campfire and think about how to mend oneself without inflicting too much agony.
On that occasion, watching embers burn, one will consider how things might affect us almost defenseless. And thus have an identical feeling to living beings (“Il sentimento delle cose”).
And one pauses to consider how “it may be foolish to think of being alone.” In short, wisdom in song form.
“Fiamme” and “Brucio” are instead sisters of a same nocturnal, impalpable, and uncontrollable psychedelia. Of the same sense of noises in the dead of night.
“Suggestionabili” is yet another proof that certain undeniable truths find no meaning in their repression. However, one wants to assess them, they have their side effects. Always and anyway.
In the following movements, among dodged trapdoors and hungry brambles, there is also room for a romantic and dreamy serenade to oneself, because the stakes are high (rebuilding oneself) and the journey is not yet complete.
Sometimes one gets distracted and overestimates oneself perhaps, (“Only for you” compared to the rest is decidedly a drop in tone) paying the consequences and staying more awake and creative.
After walking through the seemingly enchanted world, musically accompanied by a dusty music box in “Quando passa lei,” one reaches the orchestral and poignant harmonies of the magnificent “Catherine,” Venus reappeared in the dazzle of an eternal night.
What remains next is only the scrap of a sudden outburst of bitter tears marked by the feverish sound of heart-wrenching violinations that close the grooves of the itinerary. The itinerary of restoring one's soul.
Another round, another go.

Rating 4.5 (Unfortunately, the tracklist of the album as it is slightly penalizes it in its entirety. Nonetheless, it’s a beautiful work, splendidly arranged and performed by an excellent series of musicians from the Florence area. Highly recommended)