Vinicio Capossela
Canzoni della Cupa

Capossela always manages to find an abnormal and unique way to stimulate the emotions of all those who can endure him. Of course, Our Man has not always been like this, because his early records still dealt with the more accessible "Waits/Contiana" doctrine. Let's recall then the advent of the 21st century, a time in history when the singer-songwriter had just released the innovative Canzoni a manovella, which imposed a singular and bizarre way of perceiving music on listeners, a way that divided the audience between praise for the masterpiece and acts of pure repulsion. Thus, from that album arose the new "Caposseliano" course, which culminates today in this amazing Canzoni della Cupa, partly revisited by Vinicio's monotonous and irresistible chants.

We have said many times that quality is determined by music and not by numbers, but the fact that this album has reached the top of the Superclassifica – surpassing Zucchero and Renato Zero – remains a fundamental fact to point out that, for once, the public wishes to reward quality and artistic commitment, rather than the eternal and agreeable commercial sound. This transient but significant ideological change becomes a pure act of faith towards Vinicio: it means that his music has miraculously managed to penetrate even the most fragile and inexperienced auditory systems. But for the record, this is a ten-year-old story: in 2006, in fact, Capossela's most experimental and unpredictable album was released; that Ovunque Proteggi which shortly after its release also reached the top of the best-selling albums in Italy. It's not the only analogy: Canzoni della Cupa is indeed the most beautiful album since Ovunque Proteggi! And in the decade that separates the arrival of these albums, we can also encounter two other charming releases: Da solo (2008) and Marinai, profeti e balene (2011); to say that “Caposseliana” music has not yet experienced significant moments of slackness.

This album features a very particular artwork: an evocative black and white that mythologizes a tangled mess of shaded trees and scrub, at the base of which stretches a small and dusty embankment. There is no case: the packaging is made of an openable cardboard that reveals further details of the mentioned landscape. Inside we have instead the two discs enclosed in separate CD sleeves, plus a couple of very well-crafted booklets. However, be careful: defining Canzoni della Cupa as a double album is a serious mistake. In the preface, Vinicio indeed explains to us that: “It's an album in two parts, or rather, in two sides. The side exposed to the sun, the side that desiccates, that dries in the wind. The Dust side. And then the Shadow side, the lunar side, the side of the scrub and ghosts…”

Dust

The album of tobacco workers, beggars, laborers, farm workers: an archaic peasant world made of earth, work, and sweat. A scorched dimension passed down to the present thanks to the popular heritage made of stories, proverbs, sonnets, and sayings, which Vinicio has masterfully readapted, along with a series of covers written in the sixties by an unknown Apulian singer-songwriter named Matteo Salvatore. Polvere is also the album of women, amorous seductions, disdainful serenades, and popular cynicism, with a sonic transplant that can be summed up in one word: folk! Hence plenty of space for violins, percussion, trumpets, accordions, and string instruments. Many pieces of this first part were recorded in Cabras in a 2003 session, but it's important to say that the production—which is truly remarkable—does not let the twelve years that passed before the second and final series of recordings in Calitri in 2015 be felt at all.

The closure of Polvere—entrusted to the nocturnal wanderings of a solitary singer—acts as a prologue to this second part, as if it were an invitation not to stop listening to delve into the dark side of Canzoni della Cupa.

Shadow

It is the album of false omens, the raids of muleteers who steal wood, the nocturnal pilgrimages in search of miracles. It is the album where sacred emblems (the night of San Giovanni and the cave of Saint Michael the Archangel) are more closely tied to folklore than to religion. This is why we will also encounter a myriad of other creatures belonging to peasant mythology, like the Pumminale—whose vices, in this case, make it resemble more of a pig than a werewolf—the Masciare, the Maranchino, the Malaombra, and even the Su Componidori, which to be honest is not a figure belonging to myth, but to popular paganism: the leader of the Sartiglia, a medieval-origin race that takes place in Oristano during the carnival.

Ombra has a more singer-songwriter approach and is obviously less traditional than Polvere. Still plenty of space for the guitars, but Vinicio's piano will resurface in more than one point, especially when it comes to constructing the most shadowy moments.

The songs of the Cupa almost touch five stars, which they do not reach only due to the burdensome assimilation of the tracks—two hours of music require time and patience. All things considered, however, I take advantage of the "Debaseriana" freedom to strip myself of reviewing sobriety and give you my personal opinion on what the public and critics have "spoiled" about the album. What you have read in the paragraphs above is the result of a dozen days of intense listening that leave me flaunting a certain confidence regarding the album's beauty. Certainly, even the reviewing criticism—the real one—undoubtedly recognizes the quality of this work; but it welcomes it lukewarmly in the final judgment, stopping at an average of 7/10. In my opinion, a different and unusual release like this one—with a certain artistic caliber—deserves to be received with more affection. It doesn't matter much if it will have its moment of glory anyway when—beware, take note of the prophecy—it will win the Targa Tenco 2016 as the album of the year, because a better proposal than this will never exist in the next seven months!

Finally, beware of those who denounce the excessive length of Canzoni della Cupa, of those who believe that Polvere can be separated from Ombra and vice versa: the usual nonsense that comes from "hot" comments that have no, and will never have any, serious reliability, especially when judging such a deep and complex work. The same goes for all those who dared to review it forty-eight hours after its release, because delving seriously into the Cupa means “growing, sowing... and then harvesting...”

Federico “Dragonstar” Passarella.