Stefano Barotti
Pensieri Verticali

Sometimes you feel presumptuous to say you've listened to an album that few people know and seems like a masterpiece to you.
Well, according to me, "Pensieri Verticali" is one of the best Italian singer-songwriter albums (if the word can still be used) of recent years. Regardless of definitions, indie, rather than alt-folk and any other terms, this is an album of songs, beautiful songs arranged with maturity and played by a pool of excellent musicians (from Max De Bernardi to Paolo Bonfanti, from Jono Manson to Kreg Viesselman, just to name a few). There's not much to say, other than to listen to little gems like "Povero l'amore" or "Rose d'ottobre" and "La ragazza." And wonder why Stefano Barotti is not known and appreciated in Italy as much as Fossati, De Gregori, and Capossela. The beautiful thing is that although you sense within it a bit of all the sacred monsters of times past, and also a bit of Dalla and Battisti, what emerges is a style and a beauty that belongs only to him, the vertical thinker who knows how to speak of love in these sterile times and knows how to make delicate and elegant music outside the rough times of electronics and confusion.