Roberto Angelini
La Vista Concessa

This is a completely experimental review.

I'm in my room. It’s almost midnight. Among the chaos of my desk, I find Il Carcere. I should finish it. Only a few pages are left now. Suddenly, something lights up inside me. Or maybe it dims, I don't know, you decide. I was saying, in a few moments, I decide to turn on the PC and jot down something that the next day I might call a pseudo-review.

Each of us, I believe, will always carry inside a few albums throughout life. We will have in our veins the notes of those tracks that, at night, amidst the din of traffic, in the special air of a Sunday morning, in moments of deep despair or in the simplest of joys, return faithfully to us. Always.

This is what happened to me with two albums.

The first is "da A ad A" by Marco Castoldi.

The other is the one in question.

I find that there are many really good albums. Many mediocre ones. The terrible ones go unnoticed. Few - but still sufficient - are excellent. Among these last few, however, only a few can transform you. I insist on this because I want it clear that there is a difference between a great album and an album that one might call "salvaluomo". Tonight, I want to focus on this latter category since the first already includes numerous albums with their corresponding considerations.

This album is born of care. But it is born of contradiction. It's the offspring of clay: precious but delicate. It's somewhat the summary of a contradiction. Of a clash. The natural continuation of that "il sig. Domani" - already a critics' award-winner at San Remo - which had given much hope for the future work of the Roman singer-songwriter. Not only that. There's "PongMoon". There's Drake. A project emerges with a passion for the songwriter of "Know", which feels like a thank you both for Drake's art and for the presence of his music - rich with bizarre tunings - and his words in particular moments of Angelini himself. Between these two works, there’s more. "Un altro me" he wrote himself in the autograph I have preserved.

There's the summer of 2003. There's the desire to emerge. To stand tall. Festivalbar, a video brimming with babes, guest appearances on commercial music shows, girls drooling over you and so much insecurity. A reckless move, as he often defines it.

I believe that an artist is always an artist.

All this is part of his training. Perhaps today this album wouldn’t be what it is if it weren’t for GattoMatto and Co. Well, about five years have passed since then. Five years of awakening. Five years of much music played in Roman venues. Almost starting over from scratch.

In 2006, he founded the record label fiorirari. So the following year, the video for December is ready, the leading single of the new album. Amidst various anticipations and denials, we reach last summer. The album is ready. It will be released in autumn.

Nothing. It seems like yet another postponement.

But on December fifth, "dicembre" is suddenly delivered to the radios. It’s done. A few weeks later comes the official announcement: the album will finally be published in January. Fourteen tracks. Now, I've never liked describing the essence within a song in so few words.

Moreover, I don’t think it’s right to mention this song over that one. It’s the album in its singular multitude that has its own path, its own life.

"La vista concessa" tells us that moments shouldn’t be rushed through, that every now and then we should stop, look up and smile at every bitter experience lived. It whispers to us to turn the page and move on, because, in the end, it was nothing. It asks us if we are rare flowers or garden gnomes, and assures us that where we don’t go, we shall go. It reminds us that it’s not the fall that should scare us, but the impact with the ground. This, and all that due to lack of space, tools, verba, summarizing capacity, and so on, I failed to convey here, is "la vista concessa."

I think I’ve been too verbose. I hope I gave enough space to the album - which, however, could not be framed without considering everything behind it - and didn’t get lost in conversations that attracted little attention from others.

I started by writing about a completely experimental review. Well, despite the late hour, luckily, I’m still half-mad.

The experimentation lies in the fact that the album discussed hasn’t been published yet. It will see the light at the end of January. I believe this doesn’t prejudice anything at all.

By now.... it’s a little more than an hour to dawn