Riccardo Sinigallia
Incontri A Metà Strada

When in 2000 Tiromancino stepped onto the Ariston stage, complete unbeknownst although with already four albums behind them, Riccardo Sinigallia was still part of the game. Perhaps he didn't imagine that this springboard would propel the combo into the elite of a refined pop d’auteur, but above all he never would have thought that commercial horizons would open up that were unimaginable until that moment.

However, it wasn't the Sanremo song (Strade) that launched them into our hit parade, but rather "Due destini" (featured in the soundtrack of Le fate ignoranti) which, in its progression, blatantly mimicked a certain Lucio Battisti from the late seventies. The day after the release of "La Descrizione Di Un Attimo", Riccardo Sinigallia left, leaving the name to Federico Zampaglione alone, who, one must recognize, managed to handle it with great wisdom, still providing two discs of fresh modern songwriting almost never falling into the trivial.

It doesn't seem that Riccardo Sinigallia ever regretted his departure. The solo career he then embarked on, although far less exposed but not for this less incisive, managed to compensate and satisfy his artistic urgencies. With "Incontri a Metà Strada" the Roman, in his second solo attempt, demonstrates having achieved such compositional maturity as not to feel any envy towards his more famous former adventure companion.

Nine songs plus a small instrumental piece at the end form an album that if on the one hand surely recalls paths already trodden by Tiromancino (and how could it be otherwise), on the other conveys the effort, commitment, and desire to go beyond the boundaries of simple d’auteur composition. Leaving any technological regurgitation behind, the album unfolds in a soft singer-songwriter style where the sparse instrumentation never invades the happy compositional vein that blessed Riccardo Sinigallia in drafting the work.

Slightly more played songs like in the opening "Finora" or the autobiographical "Laura" (his companion) or "Amici nel tempo" where memories emerge with delicate melancholy, others more subdued where he lets himself be accompanied by just the acoustic guitar or by languid piano touches to paint intimate auteur sketches colored by soft pastel shades that almost seem to ask permission to enter, so simple and fragile are they in their structure.

Of note is the presence of Filippo Gatti and Emidio Clementi in "Anni di Pace", perhaps the least conventional song of the entire album. It is certainly not the definitive album of Riccardo Sinigallia, at least this is what we (and he) wish for, but the moorings have been cast off and the navigation towards a starry sky is within reach.