Vinicio Capossela
Camera a sud

THE REVIEW

There's no particular reason why someone might resort to Vinicio's records, especially when you're fed up with everything and everyone, when you're at a damn crossroads and don't know which path to take. And the night before, you indulged, because sometimes the rope loosens for us too, and afterward, you experience the "bitter taste of the morning" while time mercilessly ticks by "clock hands... I'd make you turn".
Now, you might say, Vinicio tends to capitalize on being a bohemian loser, but since the heart is not easily commanded, how can you not adore someone who sings "because living is hard without even an illusion, a used dream, an invention" those trifles that keep us going, despite everything, chasing our shabby dreams and dreaming impossible loves "we run over a thread, a season, a subtle unease".

But let's get to the album: the third chapter of Vinnie with the collaboration of Antonio Marangolo. In this record, our protagonist's personality begins to define itself, the ingredients being more or less the same as the previous records, but the path that will lead him to his definitive maturation begins to outline. "Zampanò," for example, moves on stylistic schemes a thousand miles away from the cool jazz smoothness of Hamburg with that velvet-clad trumpet of Paolo Fresu. "Furore" seems like a sister to "La notte se n'è andata," same style, same visions of borderline humanity.
That Marangolo's work is starting to feel confining for Vinicio is evidenced by "Fantasma delle tre". There's an apparent contradiction between the music that seems more like a pure stylistic exercise and the lyrics, a pure distillate of Capossellian philosophy, one of those rogue songs that expose the author. This is testified by the upheaval the author will bring to the song in Liveinvolvo, a more fitting accompaniment that restores the song to its most suitable form.
The merits of this album can be found in the film-like images of "Tornando a casa" and "Il mio amico ingrato" which are the author's strengths, maintaining a rare disillusionment and expressive lyricism. "Guiro" is pure amusement which fits well in such a record and in "Camera a sud," our beloved Vinicio manages to create a painting with gentle tones, borrowing from the pure spirit of saudagi, an understated way to pay tribute to that South which often recurs in Capossellian lyrics.

Nevertheless, the album remains a high-level work, perhaps one of Vinicio's most "light" albums, the most accessible, especially the record from which to start to discover the chiaroscuro world of Vinicio, rich in melancholic unease, personal rooms in which we often risk finding ourselves.