Pino Daniele
Electric Jam

LA RECENSIONE

It's been 32 years since "Napul'è," but the desire to write (and play, especially) has not left him.

As of March 27, the latest work of Pino Daniele, "Electric Jam," is on sale. The album is just the first part of a project and, as the title suggests, the album is entirely played with an electric guitar. This project will conclude in November with "Acoustic Jam" (in an acoustic version indeed); for this reason, the CD consists of 6 tracks and is clearly on sale at a reduced price (9.90 €).

The album opens with the single "Il sole dentro di me" in collaboration with J-Ax: yet another demonstration of our artist's willingness to always engage with new music styles and artists. But it's from the next track that you realize there's something new (or old?) in this CD: "Dimentica" is the classic "Pino Daniele-style" song where it returns to the much-loved and used Italian-English bilingualism from better times ("Yes I know my way, I say i sto ccà"..) and a certain type of sound that has nothing to do with "Il sole dentro di me" and surely makes the nostalgic ones happy... It will be the second single. Third track "Cuore di pietra": from the title, you can already tell it's about love and feeling... it indeed is, and the result is an appreciable song with a beautiful electric guitar in the background and a nice text. Follows "Anime che girano": in my opinion, the masterpiece of the entire album. A jazzy song supported by lyrics that perfectly match the piece's structure... worth listening to. "Sesso e chitarra elettrica": the fifth song in the lineup, and here too, we face a masterpiece: a very powerful guitar and drums (only for this track, Pino relies on the drums of Alfredo Golino). A song about a somewhat confused guitarist and those values he believed in, which perhaps have vanished: "sesso e chitarra elettrica e una foto del Che, stampata su una maglietta tutta sbiadita come me...". The album closes with "Io vivo fra le nuvole": a soft song but again worth highlighting due to good lyrics and, clearly, Pino's guitar as a carpet where a finale is highlighted with our artist flaunting a 2-minute solo!! Beautiful. A worthy conclusion.

What can I say? This time Pino has made a great album, the single to me is a bit deceiving, in the sense that one expects an album on the same level as the latest ones, instead, he's gone beyond: perhaps because he's returned a bit more to his genre, perhaps because he's returned to the electric guitar, and perhaps because he's dusted off that sound all the fans have been waiting for decades... the fact is this time "Electric Jam" will not disappoint his true admirers.

Rating for Pino: 8.