Paolo Conte
Psiche

"Psiche". The latest endeavor by the Count is a damnably bare work of such simplicity that it becomes almost challenging. Paolo Conte offers us, as per tradition, short and undoubtedly captivating songs in their mild hermeticism, yet this album sometimes seems to dissolve in its own painfully rarefied sentimentality.

Much of "Psiche" is touchingly melancholic: the notes sink into a languid intimacy made of passions and elusive but picturesque images, while the artist’s unmistakable voice paints, with a certain elegance, (self?)portraits with soft and blurred contours.

"Psiche" (the title track) is a resigned and tremulous confession before a piano, a mirror of faded hopes, and "Intimità" is, just as the title reveals, a moment of naked and calm poetry that reveals roots of clear but delicate jazz matrix present here and there throughout the album but often set aside in favor of rubbery bursts of synth. The vaguely pulsating rhythm of "Big Bill" is pleasant, and "Coup de Théâtre" enchants with its sensuality thanks to Emma Shapplin's voice intoning sighs over French phrasings. But it is especially with the closing track "Berlino" that time suspends on the dawning notes of a sax, surrendering to the warm glow of the piano.

Certainly, there are danceable moments and engaging rhythms embodied in swing, in tango, or more simply in decisive and lively rhythms that, in this case, can be found in "Velocità Silenziosa", in the passionate "Ludmilla", or in the carefree nature of "Danza della Vanità", all tracks that nonetheless betray that sense of nostalgic melancholy encapsulated in the Count's voice.

"Psiche sa leggere, scrivere, pallida lampada araba", and it is an album that lives by its timid and subdued light, at times resulting as morbidly dreamy - just listen to the atypical "Omicron" to get an idea. To be listened to, perhaps, while stuck in the sleepy night traffic, immersed in a babel of dim and crimson headlights, with a light rain to soothe and dissolve every contour, and with a Paolo Conte, lost in distant loves and the magic of evocative landscapes of other times, to warm our tired hearts.