Vinicio Capossela
Camera A Sud

Or how to reconcile with Italian music after a long period of foreign music obsession...

It was 1994, and having moved past a long metal binge and its surroundings, I found myself searching here and there for some musical stimulus of different origin, no longer content to consume the records of historical bands that shaped my adolescent musical taste with yet another listen. With Italian music, I was stuck in the early '80s, to "Titanic" or a bit more, but luckily a friend came along and invited me to lend an ear to a certain Vinicio Capossela, whom I initially thought was a Brazilian bossa nova singer, and he lent me the CD of "Camera a Sud," not imagining that this album would not only reconcile me with Italian music but also make me discover an artist of international stature, born in Germany but unmistakably Italian.

Twelve years later, and after at least a hundred listens to "Camera a Sud," I write this review with the very intention of paying tribute to a great singer-songwriter (which is not a dirty word, in this case), who enabled me to rediscover Italian music of (high) quality. After his debut in 1990, Capossela was pointed out as a sort of artistic godson of Paolo Conte, also given the presence of musicians from the entourage of the Asti singer-songwriter, then with the subsequent "Modì," his distinct personality was already beginning to emerge; the title track of that album is simply a masterpiece, and the rest also bears the signs of potentially enormous talent, on the verge of exploding.

And so here is "Camera a Sud," in which we already find a formed and mature author, a perfectly recognizable musical trait, despite the (obvious) influences and sources from which Vinicio draws (the singer-songwriter song of Tenco and Paoli, Balkan music, Caribbean rhythms, the more accessible jazz). The arrangements are beautiful, enriched by orchestral strings, and also admirable are the portraits, vividly drawn, of the characters inhabiting his repertoire: the wedding witness in "Il mio amico ingrato," the reveler returning home with his guilty conscience in "Tornando a casa," the lazybones reluctant to get out of bed in "Guiro".....

As Vano Fossati/Rocco Tanica would say, the journey of the tracks in "Camera a Sud" consists of colorful and exciting episodes, ranging from the description of abandonment which in "Non è l'amore che va via" is tinged with melancholy, and in "Furore" is rancorous, to the erratic rhythms of the gypsy-like "Zampanò," to the atmospheric jazzy slow of "Amburgo" (featuring a spine-tingling trumpet..) to the fiesta of "Che coss'è l'amor" or even more, in the Cuban son montuno of "Guiro" (with the double entendre "allor adesso c'ho son..").

I am still amazed after all these years how a piece like "Tornando a casa" can be so darn evocative, an ironic English waltz dedicated to all those who make "stratardi" in the evening... it almost feels like being there with the character of the song, and one almost feels solidarity with him... while the music captivates with its disarming beauty... and what about the seductive bossa nova finale that gives the album its title, if not that more than a song it seems like a painting, or better yet a real film, given its ability to incarnate with sound the diary of a sunny provincial day.... magical!

A flaw? Perhaps "Il fantasma delle tre" does not quite measure up to the rest, although it shows Capossela as a modern Fred Buscaglione, for the amused tone of the singing, but this is hypercritical reasoning, in reality, this album has class and sentiment, there is poignant melancholy and anger, there is genius and regularity, in short, it boasts all the greatness of one of the best living authors of Italian song.

Everyone will have their favorite Capossela, and, although "Canzoni a manovella" is a monumental album, my favorite will remain, barring future masterpieces, this stunning "Camera a Sud," a pure gem of the Italian songwriter tradition.